HISTORY OF THE GARDEN PEA 



later the pods were cooked whole, dipped in a sauce at 

 the table, much as globe artichokes are now eaten, and 

 the peas were licked out and the pod thrown away ; green 

 peas, shelled from the pod and then cooked was the last 

 step in the evolution of the pea as an esculent. Shelled 

 peas were not much used in England until after the 

 restoration of Charles II when they became a very popu- 

 lar delicacy. Ripe peas shelled from the pod were 

 commonly parched, fried, or boiled. Green peas were 

 not common even as late as 1700 according to a para- 

 grapher in Gardeners' Chronicle who says: 



" The taste for Green Peas appears to have been 

 carried to great excess in the time of Louis XIV. Bonne- 

 fonds mentions them in his Jardinier Francais, 1651, 

 and describes them as the Dutch Pea, or Pea without 

 shell : and adds, ' Until very lately they were exceedingly 

 rare.' Roquefort says they were first introduced by 

 M. de Buhl, the French Ambassador in Holland, about 

 1600. The author of a Life of Colbert, 1695, says, 

 ' It is frightful to see persons sensual enough to purchase 

 Green Peas at the price of 50 crowns per litron ' (little 

 more than an English pint). This kind of pompous 

 expenditure prevailed much at the French Court, as 

 will be seen by a letter of Madame de Maintenon, dated 

 10th May, 1696. ' The subject of Peas, continues to 

 absorb all others,' says she; ' the anxiety to eat them, the 

 pleasure of having eaten them, and the desire to eat 

 them again, are the three great matters which have been 

 discussed by our Princes for four days past. Some 

 ladies, even after having supped at the Royal table, and 

 well supped too, returning to their own homes, at the 

 risk of suffering from indigestion, will again eat Peas 

 before going to bed. It is both a fashion and a mad- 

 ness.' " 



The name " peascod " was equivalent to our present- 

 day " pea-pod," and a rhyme in the time of King Henry 

 VI ran: 



" Were women as little as they are good, 



A peascod would make them a gown and hood." 



Gerarde in 1597 mentions Pisum excorticatum 

 (without skins in the codsi, which no doubt was the 

 prototype of the sans parchemin pea still commonly 

 grown on the continent but little used in Great Britain or 

 North America. Edible-podded peas differ much more 

 in their pods than those from which the peas are shelled. 

 This is to be expected as, of course, they have been 

 selected for their pods. 



White, yellow, blue, green, gray, and spotted 

 peas. — None of the ancients distinguish ripened peas 

 by the color of the seeds, and Dodonaeus in his Frumen- 

 torum, 1566, was probably the first writer to distinguish 

 between the colors, and names white, yellow, green and 

 gray peas. Parkinson, 1629, adds spotted peas to the 

 colors. He says: 



The kindes of Pease are these; 

 The Rounciuall. The gray Pease. 



The greene Hasting The white Hasting. 

 The Sugar Pease. The Pease without skins. 



The spotted Pease. 



The Scottish or tufted Pease, which some call the 

 Rose Pease, is a good white Pease fit to be eaten. 



The early or French Pease, which some call Fulham 

 Pease, because those grounds thereabouts doe bring 

 them soonest forward for any quantity, although some- 

 times they miscarry by their haste and earlinesse." 



Black-eyed peas. — Townsend, an English seeds- 

 man in 1726, is probably first to mention the black-eyed 

 pea. He gave the variety the name by which it is still 

 known, though but rarely grown. Black-eyed Marrowfat. 



Round and wrinkled peas. — Probably Tragus 

 in 1552 was the first writer to mention wrinkled peas. 

 Wrinkled peas are also recorded in Belgian and German 

 gardens by Dodonaeus in his Frumentorum, 1566. 

 In his description of P/sum magus he says: " The dry 

 seed are angular, uneven, of a white color in some varie- 

 ties, of a sordid color in others." Pena and Lobel, 1570, 

 describe the same pea as grown in Belgian and English 

 gardens, and Lobel in 1591 illustrates wrinkled peas 

 under the name Pisum quadratum. The Great 

 Peason, Garden Peason, or Branch Peason of Lyte, 1586, 

 is probably a wrinkled pea as he gives Dodonaeus' name 

 as a synonym. Ray, 1686. describes wrinkled peas 

 under the name Rouncival, and refers to Gerarde's 

 picture of Pisum. majus or Rowncivall Pease in 1597 

 as being the same. Lisle, 1708, gives a good description 

 of a wrinkled pea which he calls " honey -combed or 

 pitted." Thomas Andrew Knight, however, was the 

 first to bring wrinkled peas into general esteem. 



Knight began his work of hybridizing this vege- 

 table in 1787 by which he obtained Knight's Green 

 Wrinkled and White Wrinkled Marrow peas. The 

 parents, according to Knight's account of his work in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1799, were round 

 white and gray peas, tall and dwarf, in which the 

 wrinkled character had not appeared before. Corre- 

 lated with the wrinkled skin is rich, sweet, tender flesh, 

 and great productiveness. Thus Knight's Wrinkled 

 Marrows became at once a great acquisition both to 

 consumers and cultivators of peas and soon varieties of 

 tall and dwarf, early and late wrinkled peas became the 

 most popular table peas in gardens and on markets. 

 It is surmised by some that this remarkable wrinkled 

 character in peas is a mutation and that there was no 

 record of wrinkledness in peas before Knight's work; 

 yet, as has been shown, a wrinkled pea existed before 

 Knight made his crosses, and in his account of his 

 experiment from which came the first named wrinkled 

 pea Knight says: " In this experiment I used the 

 farina of a White Pea which possessed the remarkable 

 property of shrivelling excessively when ripe." 



Dimpled peas. — About the middle of the Nine- 

 teenth Century a new type of pea appeared, one having 

 a round seed with compressed sides or even a slight indent 

 in the sides henceforth to be known as dimpled peas. 

 Early Green Marrow and Tall Green Marrow are 

 among the earliest dimpled peas. 



Tall and dwarf peas.— Varieties of peas ranging 

 in height of vine from four to twenty-four inches are 

 grouped as dwarf sorts; those from two feet to four feet 



