Pasta Sauce with Peas, Ham, and Cream

This ingredients list—ham, cream, butter—is as good as a road map; it tells us we are in Emilia-Romagna, the land of bounteous flavor. We may not be able to or want to eat this way every day, but when we can and we do, it makes us realize how much we miss when we don’t.

As a delicious way to acknowledge and celebrate the coming of spring, you would make this pea and ham sauce when very fresh and very young peas become available in a farmers’ market near you. You certainly ought not