h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Traditional Mushy Peas - A Great British Delicacy - A87795904
Author: Lanzababy - U10790805

2legs and I have decided these peas have soaked for long enough, and should be ready to cook by now.

Please give us your support to get this (joint) entry into the Guide alongside thse culinary wonders such as Faggots.
For our next joint offering we're going to be writing about pie, specifically meat and potato pie, to link eventually with this one.

Thank you

This stuff sounds very strange to me. Are there not even any spices in it? Not even salt? I can't imagine it at all.

Goo(d) Entry Lanza and 2Legs.

This sentence could be tidied a bit to avoid the profusion of commas and the repetition of "contain":

Home made, or traditional mushy peas, do not contain the entirely unnecessary range of additional ingredients and colourings which some commercially made mass-produced (tinned) versions contain.

You're so correct there Tavaron, these things are plain and bland. The bicarbonate gives them sufficient sodium, and they are supposed be like this. I guess this type of recipe is what gave British cooking such a bad name.

Basically they were nutritious food for very hungry poor people.

I'll tidy that sentence, (I am sure 2legs won't mind)

Ah, yes, I forgot about the bicarbonate.

We don't really have anything like that here. I think the poor rather ate a mush from grains or also lentils and beans, but not made like what you describe. We don't really have lots of stuff with peas, come to think of it. The only thing that springs to my mind is boiled tongue (pork or beef) with mashed peas, but they are different.

I'm sure some flavouring is sometimes added in, to it, Having had mushy peas from the mushry pea stall (aptly named), at Norwich market (the longest continual running mushy pea stall in the country), I'm fairly* sure, that they've got some mustard in their's, and maybe something else... (wostershire sauce? perhaps.....).

Well done Gnomon for spotting one of my sentences

They're not a un-flavoursome dish though; very 'earthy', sort of like various beans/lentils that one also soaks... (kidney beans, pinto, black eyed peas, etc type things...)

We could add a mention that some variations have a bit of added zest? I've seen people slosh on some balsamic vinegar? What do you think?

mustard, worcestershire sauce, vinegar? that sort of thing?

Yeh... that might be worth putting in...
I'm guessing* that the secret ingredient in the Norwich mushry pea stall mushy peas, is colmans mustard of some variety, being in Norwich, it seems a logical guess... ; Despite my best efforts, the stallholder was, totally inert to my charms, and wouldn't divulge they're secret family recipie to me Mmmm.... damnit now I want to go to Norwich, just to have a pie and mushy peas again, off of the market

OOOoohoOOOOoooh!


My nan used to make pea soup and bacon bones!


When I was pregnant with VC, nan promised to make some for when I next visited her, and forgot!

When VC was born she licked her lips "That baby missed out on something." said Nan - then she remembered.

Next visit she had made a pan of pea soup and bacon bones - not for me, but for VC as she put a taste on her lips.




A good piece of writing, Lanza


lil x

What a lovely job of describing a perfectly awful foodstuff.

I'm with Tavaron. German pea soup is elegant - especially with a sausage in.

Oooooh, pea soup with sausage.

Can I get funding to go on a trip to Norwich, to visit the mushy pea stall again? err... in the name of essential research for the article?

won't really cover it, will it?

If there were funds, I'd come along too, to take photos. I love old markets, ones with history and traditional stalls like this.

Thanks for all the comments, 2legs was the inspiration for this (as he is for many things on h2g2) and wrote the first half. I just edited it a bit and did the recipe section.

And now, I must take some photos!

I may be off to Norwich market, and the mushy pea stall before long, if I do, I'll try get a photo of it, and if I do get a photo of it, maybe then* stick a quick little section into the article about it, the mushy pea stall and its history, and the photo if it is OK, could go in too (well maybe sometime in teh next few weeks we'll be going to Norwich for a couple of days....)

The word 'tenets' sounds a bit odd in the first section. It suggests a belief or an ideology. Maybe something like 'the building blocks/foundations of comfort food'? (Then again that's not true. Lots of comfort food isn't based on mushy peas...)

The most appallingly radioactive ones I've seen are the Harry Ramsden's tinned kind. It requires a major leap of faith to put them anywhere near your mouth.

The entry seems all good. My only suggestion is that you mention the reason for adding the bicarbonate of soda to the peas while steeping.

(By the way, these aren't as horrific as people seem to think. There are *lots* of similar pulse dishes in Indian cuisine, for example. These aren't just something Brits do out if perversity and bloody-mindedness, you know! )

I'll have you know they are* something I have out of sheer bluddy mindedness!

There is/was, a EU directive, coming into force soon, err, canny remember the details, but its meant* to be outlawing one of the 'ingredients' which gives commercial mushy peas their radioactive colour, as, strange as it seems, turns out whatever chemical colouring agent it is, is not actually very good for human health
Having said which... and in light, of, thereby, eating mushy peas, is a little akin to an idiology, or belief... I mean... you have* to have faith you're going to survive the deglutation process when you've a spoon full of matterial that looks like it was taken off of the floor at the Chenobal nuclear reactor

Don't think I can edit the entry, but was wondering waht people might think about the following small changes to it:

"..However in the UK, this food which really ought not
to 'work' has something of an iconic status, .."
Think that might 'read' better without the 'to' between 'ought not and 'work'?



"Certainly not a sophisticated food, and almost certainly not to be found in any remotely 'high class' restaurants"

"Certainly not a sophisticated food, and most definately not to be found in any remotely 'high class' restaurants"





".....and somehow, for some people, the resulting combination of aromas flavours and textures works remarkably well. Maybe they are one of the tenets of comfort
food."

"and somehow, for some people, the resulting combination of aromas flavours and textures works remarkably well, creating for some,an epitamy of comfort
food."

Inspired by this Entry I have started to update our Entry about Sauerkraut.

I've tried* to like that* stuff.... Its used a lot in Polish cooking too... but try as I might... I can't get the taste for that at all!

See, you like mashed peas, I like sauerkraut.