Whole Foods Final Pages 12/20/04 2:58 PM Page 199

V E G E TA B L E S

Pea
(Pisum sativum)

I eat my peas with honey,

I’ve done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife.
—Anonymous

How luscious lies the pea within the pod.

—Emily Dickinson

The word pease, of Sanskrit origin, became pisum in Latin

and pease in early English. The final e was dropped in the
mistaken belief that the word was a plural. Sativum indi-
cates that this plant has long been cultivated.

General Information
The pea is such an ancient food plant that its center of
origin is uncertain, although it is usually attributed to a
band of territory sweeping from the Near East into central
Asia. Part of the legume family, peas in their dried form
have been used as a staple food since ancient times, being
found even in Egyptian tombs. Hot pea soup was peddled
in the streets of Athens, while fried peas were sold to spec-
tators in lieu of popcorn at the Roman circus and in the-
aters. Upper-class Romans ate their peas with salted whale
meat, while the lower classes had to make do with por-
ridge. A new, sweet-tasting pea was introduced in the six-
teenth century, tailor-made for the new custom of eating

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peas fresh. When Catherine de Medici married King
Henry II of France, she introduced his countrymen to
small, sweet, fresh piselli novelli (new peas), which she had
brought from her home in Florence, Italy. These tender
gems were adopted enthusiastically by the fashionable
French, who dubbed them petits pois, the name still in use
worldwide for a very tasty type of baby pea. The first peas
in America were planted by Christopher Columbus in
1493 on Isabella Island, and the new vegetable was
adopted enthusiastically by the Indians. The cultivated pea
is comprised of two main varieties—the field pea, now
used mostly for forage and for dried peas, and the garden
pea, with its high sugar content, considered by some to be
the aristocrat of the pea family.
drooping. Prepare them on the day that you buy them. A
yellowish pod indicates overmaturity.
Culinary Uses
Fresh garden peas have a delicate, sweet flavor that is well
worth the time-consuming effort of shelling them. Use as
soon as possible after buying because their sugar quickly
turns to starch and they lose flavor. The finest of all are
those picked very young and called petits pois (tiny, sweet,
very young, and tender), but other varieties are also delec-
table. Peas can be boiled or steamed, puréed, and used in
soups, salads, savory dishes, and casseroles; they are deli-
cious served with fresh mint. Canned or frozen peas lack
much of the flavor of fresh peas.

Buying Tips Health Benefits

Choose crisp, young, uniformly green, well-filled pods. pH 4.90–6.88. Fresh peas are of much greater value med-
Fresh garden peas have a very limited summer season, alas, icinally when eaten raw in salads than when cooked, but it
so make the most of them. Look for pods that are a clear takes a strong digestive tract to properly digest raw peas.
fresh green, not dull, and that have a bouncy shape, never Slightly diuretic, peas help control blood sugar levels and

Pea / Nutritional Value Per 100 g Edible Portion

Edible Pod Edible Pod Sprouted Sprouted
Raw Cooked Raw Cooked Raw Cooked
Calories 81 84 42 42 128 118
Protein 5.42 g 5.36 g 2.80 g 3.27 g 8.80 g 7.05 g
Fat 0.40 g 0.22 g 0.20 g 0.23 g 0.68 g 0.51 g
Fiber 2.21 g 2.31 g 2.50 g 1.04 g 2.78 g 3.3 g
Calcium 25 mg 27 mg 43 mg 42 mg 36 mg 26 mg
Iron 1.47 mg 1.54 mg 2.08 mg 1.97 mg 2.26 mg 1.67 mg
Magnesium 33 mg 39 mg 24 mg 26 mg 56 mg 41 mg
Phosphorus 108 mg 117 mg 53 mg 55 mg 165 mg 24 mg
Potassium 244 mg 271 mg 200 mg 240 mg 381 mg 268 mg
Sodium 5 mg 3 mg 4 mg 4 mg 20 mg 3 mg
Zinc 1.240 mg 1.190 mg n/a 0.370 mg 1.050 mg 0.780 mg
Copper 0.176 mg 0.173 mg n/a 0.077 mg 0.272 mg 0.020 mg
Manganese 0.410 mg 0.525 mg n/a 0.168 mg 0.438 mg 0.325 mg
Beta Carotene (A) 640 IU 597 IU 145 IU 131 IU 166 IU 107 IU
Thiamine (B1) 0.266 mg 0.259 mg 0.150 mg 0.128 mg 0.225 mg 0.216 mg
Riboflavin (B2) 0.132 mg 0.149 mg 0.080 mg 0.076 mg 0.155 mg 0.285 mg
Niacin (B3) 2.090 mg 2.021 mg 0.600 mg 0.539 mg 3.088 mg 1.072 mg
Pantothenic Acid (B5) 0.104 mg 0.153 mg 0.750 mg 0.673 mg 1.029 mg 0.683 mg
Pyridoxine (B6) 0.169 mg 0.216 mg 0.160 mg 0.144 mg 0.265 mg 0.128 mg
Folic Acid (B9) 65.0 mcg 63.3 mcg n/a n/a 144.0 mcg 36.3 mcg
Ascorbic Acid (C) 40.0 mg 14.2 mg 60.0 mg 47.9 mg 10.4 mg 6.6 mg
Tocopherol (E) 0.13 mg n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

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crisp, sweet, and colorful, steam, blanch, or stir-fry for

LORE AND LEGEND
Most peas in ancient times were consumed
dried, the drying process being considered
essential to cure the pea of its “noxious and
stomach-destroying” qualities. Uncured peas
were occasionally left on the vines by farmers
with the intention of poisoning pestiferous rab-
bits, which may have gotten the better end of the
deal. Abundant in folklore, peas were a favorite
of Thor, the thunder god of Norse mythology, and
are still eaten on Thor’s day, or Thursday, in
Germany. They were often connected with
wooing, possibly as a fertility symbol, and were
used for divination: to dream of a dry pea was a
portent of a coming marriage. In parts of Europe,
peas are still thrown in the lap of a bride on her
wedding day to ensure fertility. Then there’s the
Hans Christian Andersen story that everyone
knows, of a princess so sensitive that she could
feel a pea under all those mattresses.
no more than a brief minute or two. Snow peas nourish
the liver, stomach, and spleen-pancreas; they are also a
good source of calcium and potassium as well as iron
and phosphorus.
Sugar snap peas, also known as mangetouts, are a
hybrid developed by breeder Calvin Lamborn of the
Gallatin Valley Seed Company in Twin Falls, Idaho, in
the 1970s. Looking just like traditional English peas,
the sugar snap pea is the result of a cross between a
tough-podded mutant of a processing pea and a con-
ventional snow pea, giving the best of both varieties.
These peas have stubby, crunchy, sweet, edible pods
enclosing fat, sweet peas. Uncooked, the peas and their
pods are crisp and delicious. When ever-so-lightly
steamed or blanched, their color turns a dazzling
emerald green and their sweetness intensifies. They
should be quickly sautéed or stir-fried, for only about
two minutes, as overcooking destroys their crisp tex-
ture. Older peas may need to be strung on both seams.

contain lectins, which dissolve clumps of red blood cells

that are destined to become clots. Peas also contain antifer-
tility agents. In areas of Tibet where there are high con-
sumptions of peas, the fertility rate is considerably
suppressed, reduced by more than 50 percent.

VA R I E T I E S
English peas have pods that are not edible. The large,
bulging, grass-green pods enclose peas that are typically
round and sweet. Most are picked when they are still
immature and their sugar content is highest. As they
continue to ripen, some of the sugar turns to starch,
and the amount of protein increases. Peas intended for
drying are left to mature.
Snow peas have firm, crisp, flat, bright green edible pods
that taper at both ends and contain very small, under-
developed peas. The classic snow pea must be picked
before the inner peas begin to bulge out and stringiness
develops; like other peas, they should be consumed as
soon after picking as possible, since their high sugar
content quickly turns to starch. For snow peas that are

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