Peas

When I was a child there was a large (to me anyway!) walled vegetable garden and it supplied us with all the fruit and veg we could eat, possibly not all year round but most of it. There was enough left over for the surplus to be sold and people from the village bought a fair share of their veg from us. Those were the days!

My brother and I used to go into the vegetable garden after school and eat the strawberries. Of course, this was not allowed and one day we heard someone coming so we slid both ourselves and OUR BIKES under the netting. That of course was a disaster and presumably we were duly punished. It can't have been too bad though because I don't remember that part! Maybe no strawberries for a week.

One of my favourite jobs as a result of this garden was shelling peas. There is nothing more enjoyable than eating a handful of peas straight from the pod. Nothing sweeter. The taste seems to burst out of its skin and into your mouth.



My youngest son has a friend staying tonight and wanted to prove to him that the English CAN cook. I was given my supper orders: roast chicken, roast potatoes and peas... So this afternoon I braved the heat and picked a bucketful. When I got back to the kitchen I suggested to R that he help me shell them. I was astonished that during the following half hour (while he shelled one pod to every five of mine!) he didn't want to eat a single one. His mother was not quite so disciplined!