HISTORY AND COOKERY 97 



were among the January "Points " of Tusser, and that 

 there were peas and peas is shown by the record in the 

 privy purse expenses of Henry VIII. : "Paid to a man 

 in reward for bringing pescodds to the King's grace, 

 iiijs. viiid." 



Worlidge, in his " Systema Agriculturae : Published 

 for the Common Good," of which the second edition 

 appeared in 1675? enumerates "several sorts of Garden 

 Pease sown or planted in this kingdom, some approved 

 of for their being early ripe, and some for their pleasant 

 taste ; others from their being late ripe succeeding the 

 other." 



Garden peas have been discovered in old Swiss lake- 

 dwellings of the bronze age, and they were among the 

 vegetables cultivated in ancient Greece, but their 

 original habitat is uncertain. By some the garden pea is 

 thought to be but a variety of Pisum arvense, the field 

 pea, which is found wild in Italy, but this seems to be 

 doubtful. Peas figured honourably in German mythology 

 and were consecrated to Thor, who was supposed, being 

 a god of some gastronomic taste, to have a weak- 

 ness for this vegetable. 



Shakspere's "Squash" referred to young pods before 

 the formation of Peas or Peason, as the plural was 

 almost invariably written previous to the seventeenth 

 century : "Not yet old enough to be a man, nor young 

 enough for a boy : as a Squash is before 'tis a Peascod, 

 or a Codling when 'tis almost an Apple." Most of the 

 early English references to Pese and Peason are con- 

 cerned with the dried kinds, though even in Norman 

 times there are records of green peas being eaten at 

 Barking Nunnery and elsewhere. 



To boil Peas 



There is no room for doubt as to the best method 

 of cooking peas, providing they be of a good variety, 



