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How many of us grow up eating food a certain way, only to find out later that the world deems that way strange? In my innocence, I used to think that eating raw peas, straight out of the pod, was a perfectly normal thing to do. It certainly had an iron-clad logic when my mom introduced me to the practice. Step 1: Buy peas. Step 2: Pop open the pods. Step 3: Eat the peas. Repeat as needed.
And repeat we did. I remember gradually building whole mountains of emptied pea pods in late spring and early summer, seduced by the delicate green sweetness and tender crunch of fresh English peas. My sister was such a fiend for their flavor that she'd even gnaw on the pods themselves after emptying them, savoring every last bit of springy flavor.
Later on, I began to cook with frozen peas, but they never seemed like the same vegetable to me. The kind that came in boxes was sweet, sure, but it was missing that special something. I'd never be tempted to feast on frozen peas plain, even if they happened to be thawed. Their flavor was less seductive and more simple, perfect for adding a bright sweetness topea toasts,pea soup, andpasta with peasduring the long months outside of pea season. But not something I ever craved.
So I went along in my innocence, content to enjoy both fresh raw peas and the cooked frozen kind, until I mentioned my predilection to my coworkers at Epi. Didn't the raw peas make me sick? Um, no. People eat snap peas raw all the time—peas, pod, and all. Aren't fresh peas gross and starchy? Um, no. Not if you know how to pick them as skillfully as my mom does:
Look for pods that are bright green and squeaky-fresh, not too flat (that means the peas are too small) or too bulging (that means the peas are too old/starchy). Choose wisely, and bring home a big bag. Then devour them in a kind of fugue state until the bottom of the bag says you're done. Repeat as needed until summer takes over and frozen peas regain their throne.
