Friday, July 10, 2009

Sugar Snap Peas

I've recently had this discovery of sugar snap peas. They are the most amazing things! Aside from just being cute (admit it, peas are cute), they are fascinating to me:

-You can open a pea pod by running your finger down the spine. It slices right open with a fresh crispy sound.

-While the pod is still closed, if the peas come detached from the wall of the pod you can shake it around and it makes a hollow thunkity-thunkity sound.

-When you have a whole bunch of pea pods you can shake them in your hands or in a bowl and they make a clean thooka sound.

-After you split open a pod along the spine, as you prise open the two halves of the pod, the peas separate, and you are able to see that they actually grew every other pea to a side.

-If you pull a pea one way from inside the pod, it releases easily from its little stem. But if you pull the other way, it usually takes the stem with it.

-Did you know you're supposed to eat sugar snap peas in the pod? I just discovered that fact. I like them that way, sure, but I so love the sound and feeling of slicing open the pod with my finger, and pulling them off the little stems the right way, and the taste of the little peas, that I find myself doing that first; then I eat the pod.

-Sugar snap peas taste best when they are not fully mature. When they get big and the pea shapes are defined, they are good for use as edimame. Aha! Now I finally now what that stuff is!

-A pea pod is such perfect packaging. I can't remember if it was Olive or Tree-Hugger or someone else who told me, but they said that God was really good at packaging foods. And it's true. I mean, look at bananas. Look at pea pods. Look at oranges and melons and coconuts. I love pea pods because I can just throw them in a bag and be done with it. Perfect.

I don't especially care for peas--cooked peas, as featured in Geoffrey Hayes' Patrick Eats His Dinner ("little green balls of mushy poison")--but I can say I love sugar snap peas. They are a lovely little vegetable.

3 comments:

sherrie said...

I love peas for all the same reasons! Thanks for putting it into words. They are what I look forward to more than anything every spring. I love English peas as well as snap peas - a farmer once told me the blossom end of English peas look like a whale and snap peas look like a dolphin. I call fresh peas grown-up candy. I agree with everything you said except that I like them cooked as long as they're not overcooked. I love the crisp zipping sound and every other pea on either side of the pod. I didn't know that they would release from their stems one way but not the other. I'll have to go get some more right away and try that out!

J said...

Ummm you absolutely must buy EDAMAME. You just microwave them for three minutes and then you start pushing the beans out of the pods..they are DELICIOUS and FUN! They fly REALLY far if you push too hard

ol' Bob said...

Magically good, just like Harry Potter (and better than many flavors of those silly jelly beans).