Pea shoots (also called vines, tendrils, or leaves), are the leafy tips snipped from small sugar pea and sometimes from common garden pea plants. (In recent trials, all kinds of peas have entered the pea shoot competition, and many will probably be added to the market.) Previously available only in Chinese markets, as dau miu, these twining clusters are now crossing the East-West culinary line. In traditional Chinese cooking, the jade twists are swirled into soup, steamed, or stir-fried with a touch of salt, and sometimes with ginger, sugar, or rice wine. When sufficiently small, these Art Nouveau curls, which have the distinctly green-sweet flavor of peas, add delicate freshness to contemporary salads, Western-style. Joy Larkcom writes that the practice of eating pea shoots “has spread from China to Japan [where they are called tohbyo] and has been introduced to south-east Asia by people such as the Hmongs” (Oriental Vegetables).
