Lasso

by Connie Handscomb

Canvas Print

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Framed Print

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Throw Pillow

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Bath Towel

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Round Beach Towel

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Title

Lasso

Artist

Connie Handscomb

Medium

Photograph - Photography - Fine Art

Description

Pea
Pisum sativum (P. commune)
Family : Leguminosae

We lived very simply - but with all the essentials of life well understood and provided for - hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy.�
~ Winston Churchill

The pea is found all over the world. It is so ancient, no one is really sure where it originated. The Greeks and Romans used peas; they were used in India, in China, and were cultivated in Europe.

During the Dark Ages, the pea was the staple food of the poor (along with beans and lentils). King John, Robin Hood's legendary foe, liked peas so much he is said to have died from over-eating them (seven bowlfuls in one sitting). Garden peas we enjoy today are sweet; it is 25% sucrose by weight, half of which can be lost within six hours if left at room temperature.
But, in earlier times, the pea was very starchy, and dried since fresh peas were believed to be noxious to the stomach. In fact, farmers would leave them on the vines to poison rabbits that disturbed the crops. They were cooked with mint to mask the starch flavour.

The garden pea has a special place in plant history. It was bred by Gregor Mendel in the 1800's, a monk from Czechoslavkia, who experimented in the abbey gardens with plant breeding and genetics. The garden pea was key to unlocking the secrets of heredity. The sugar snap pea is a hybrid of the 1950's.

Peas are legumes, and gift the gardener by fixing the soil with nitrogen.

A Norse legend has Thor sending off dragons with peas in their talons to fill up wells of those he was unhappy as a punishment. Some fell to earth and were only eaten on 'his' day : Thursday.

And finally, the word lasso (also called a lariat) comes from the Spanish la reata , which we commonly associate with the cowboy.

Source:
Glorious Harvest [Bianchini; Corbetta]
Gardener's Atlas: Origins, Discovery, And Cultivation of The World's Most Popular Garden Plants [Grimshaw]
Country Wisdom [R. Richardson]
How Carrots Won The Trojan War [R.Rupp]