Peas on Earth
The speciality known as parchus peaus is found only in Preston and its environs. However, the rest of the world
- while not having access to the one true pea - do have some pea-ness in their lives.
Wigan is the capital of pea wet - aka the juice off mushy peas. Apparently those in the know ask for "pea wet top and
bottom", meaning a layer of pea wet, a layer of chips and another spoonful of pea wet.
My Lancaster correspondent informs me that you can find pea wet there too if you know where to look.
Then there is this from the other side of the great divide - Carlin peas from Yorkshire. Ken Bentley of Ken Bentley Speciality
Delicatessen Foods of Driffield East Yorks says they are also known as maple peas, pigeon peas and black badgers.
They do look kinda familiar.
Further afield
Those ancient assyrians knew their stuff. This is from Discoveries at Nineveh, one of the key
works by leading 19th Century explorer and historian Austen Henry Layard.
The wife and daughter of Abd-ur-rahman, mounted on mares, and surrounded by their
slaves and hand-maidens, next appeared. They dismounted at the entrance of the ladies' tents, where an abundant repast of
sweetmeats, halwa, parched peas, and lettuces had been prepared for them.
Read the rest here.
