Beans & Peas

Appears in

Published 2009

About

When I was small, my mother gave me a large felt pea pod with a zip. When it was undone, 6 tennis-ball sized peas looked out with smiling faces. That’s when my healthy appetite for anything with a pod kicked in.

I can’t get enough of beans and peas and even when they are out of season I revert to the tinned, dried and frozen ones. Sunday nights are for baked beans on toast and fried salted broad beans are for the riverbank. Fish fingers are as pointless without peas as cod is without mushies.

Boiled, raw, stewed, in salad -I like them anywhere, in fact. When the summer markets are bursting with fresh peas and beans, the brown paper bags get raced home with love and attention in mind. Things get steamy. I frequently get ticked off with an ‘Are you going to pay for those?’ by my greengrocer, Alan, as I can’t help mindlessly podding his peas into my mouth while visiting his stall.