History[edit]

Pea in a painting by Mateusz Tokarski, ca. 1795 (National Museum in Warsaw)

The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East. The earliest
archaeological finds of peas date from the late Neolithic era of current Greece, Syria, Turkey,
Israel, Iraq and Jordan. In Egypt, early finds date from c. 4800–4400 BC in the Nile delta area,
and from c. 3800–3600 BC in Upper Egypt. The pea was also present in Georgia in the 5th
millennium BC. Farther east, the finds are younger. Peas were present in Afghanistan c.
2000 BC; in Harappan civilization around modern-day Pakistan and western- and
northwestern India in 2250–1750 BC. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, this legume
crop appears in the Ganges Basin and southern India.[9]
In early times, peas were grown mostly for their dry seeds.[10] From plants growing wild in the
Mediterranean Basin, constant selection since the Neolithic dawn of agriculture[11] improved their
yield. In the early 3rd century BC Theophrastus mentions peas among the legumes that are
sown late in the winter because of their tenderness. [12] In the first century AD, Columella mentions
them in De re rustica, when Roman legionaries still gathered wild peas from the sandy soils
of Numidia and Judea to supplement their rations.[citation needed]
In the Middle Ages, field peas are constantly mentioned, as they were the staple that
kept famine at bay, as Charles the Good, count of Flanders, noted explicitly in 1124.[13]
Green "garden" peas, eaten immature and fresh, were an innovative luxury of Early Modern
Europe. In England, the distinction between field peas and garden peas dates from the early
17th century: John Gerard and John Parkinson both mention garden peas.[citation needed] Sugar peas,
which the French called mange-tout, because they were eaten pods and all, were introduced to
France from the market gardens of Holland in the time of Henri IV, through the French
ambassador. Green peas were introduced from Genoa to the court of Louis XIV of France in
January 1660, with some staged fanfare; a hamper of them were presented before the King, and
then were shelled by the Savoyan comte de Soissons, who had married a niece of Cardinal
Mazarin; little dishes of peas were then presented to the King, the Queen, Cardinal Mazarin and
Monsieur, the king's brother.[14][clarification needed] Immediately established and grown for earliness
warmed with manure and protected under glass, they were still a luxurious delicacy in 1696,
when Mme de Maintenon and Mme de Sevigné each reported that they were "a fashion, a fury".
[15][clarification needed]

Modern split peas, with their indigestible skins rubbed off, are a development of the later 19th
century.
The top producer of green peas – by far – is China with 12.2 million tons, followed by India (4.8
million tons), USA (0.31 million tons), France (0.23 million tons) and Egypt (0.15 million tons).
United Kingdom, Pakistan, Algeria, Peru