We're having snow peas, known in French as pois gourmands or pois mangetout ("eat-all"), for lunch today. They're growing in our 2019 vegetable garden and are the first thing we've harvested this spring (with the exception of the Swiss chard that I planted in 2018 and that over-wintered out there).
Walt was going to go out and harvest our third batch of snow peas yesterday afternoon when suddenly it started... get this... snowing! Well, not exactly snowing, but sleeting. There were two bolts of lightning, then a loud rumble of thunder. The bottom fell out. The rain was so hard that I had to go look, and what I saw was a mix of big raindrops and small ice pellets. The pellets were bouncing off the hood and roof of the Citroën, which I had left parked outdoors. No damage done, thankfully.
Walt was going to go out and harvest our third batch of snow peas yesterday afternoon when suddenly it started... get this... snowing! Well, not exactly snowing, but sleeting. There were two bolts of lightning, then a loud rumble of thunder. The bottom fell out. The rain was so hard that I had to go look, and what I saw was a mix of big raindrops and small ice pellets. The pellets were bouncing off the hood and roof of the Citroën, which I had left parked outdoors. No damage done, thankfully.
Wikipédia says people in France and in the Netherlands have been growing, cooking, and eating pois mangetout since at least the 16th century. They are mentioned in a book published in 1526. We'll be having a stir-fry of onion, garlic, carrot, snow peas, and chicken today. We've already had similar stir-fries of snow peas, one with beef and one with shrimp, this spring.
A few days ago Walt posted a photo of the second batch of snow peas he had harvested. He planted seeds we bought here in Saint-Aignan and that are described on the label as being a pois demi-nain 40 jours — semi-dwarf peas that start producing 40 days after planting. I took the photos in the slideshow above two weeks ago.
A few days ago Walt posted a photo of the second batch of snow peas he had harvested. He planted seeds we bought here in Saint-Aignan and that are described on the label as being a pois demi-nain 40 jours — semi-dwarf peas that start producing 40 days after planting. I took the photos in the slideshow above two weeks ago.
Sounds like hail, to me! We just had some last week, too.
ReplyDeleteThe garden is always such a pleasure to watch grow.
Well I guess "sleet" or rain mixed with ice pellets is a kind of hail. It's not damaging hail, but it sure is cold. I think of hail as marble-sized ice pellets or larger.
DeletePeas are so pretty on a trellis. We always had sweet peas vines growing with lots of flowers- but we couldn't stir fry them lol.
ReplyDeleteSnow peas or sugar snap peas have pods that are not lined with the fibrous membrane that lines other pea pods. The non-fibrous pods are good to eat. The ones Walt has grown and is now harvesting are very good.
DeleteSounds like some crazy weather!
ReplyDeleteThe weather is definitely weird. We had morning temperatures under 40ºF earlier this week. The central heating comes on every morning these days, even though the thermostat is set at 65ºF. This is San Francisco weather, with the addition of June rain.
Delete