Among mankind’s strongest cravings are those for sweetness and ease. That explains why springtime cooking has always been such a paradox. To get sweetness, you have to work for it. There is no better example than legumes.
Just sorting them all out is hard enough. The word “legume” refers specifically to plants that carry their seeds sealed in pods. Since English peas and favas beans are so similar, for the sake of culinary convenience, we’ll lump the two together. Most people are familiar with English peas, but fava beans are a relatively new addition to the American plate. Favas are much larger than peas, both before shelling and after. In the husk, they look like gigantic, slightly fuzzy English peas. The actual bean is flattened, looking more like a lima bean than a round pea, and depending on its maturity, after shelling it can range in size from about the same as a pea to as big around as a nickel.
English peas and favas appear in the same season. Both are incomparably sweet, green and delicious—as well as exasperatingly labor-intensive. Peas need to be shucked of their pods—a chore that, given a communal setting with friends sitting around the kitchen, can even seem like rustic fun, like a quilting bee or something. Sylvia Thompson, in The Kitchen Garden, noted that it takes 25 pea plants to produce ¼ cups of shelled fresh peas—barely a serving for a real pea fan. Fava beans are almost as bad. You have to clean 3 pounds of fava pods to get less than 2 cups of beans. Favas need to be shucked and then, a single bean at a time, peeled of their tough skins. There’s no way to put a pretty face on it: this is more like peasant drudgery. But just when you’re sitting there, elbow-deep in bean pods, thinking there is no way you’ll ever go through this again, you pop a bean in your mouth and are rewarded with an almost lightning explosion of sweet green flavor that somehow seems to sum up the entire beauty and promise of spring in a single burst.
That peas have come to represent spring is not just some accident of gustatory symbolism. Agriculturally, they are uniquely suited to the season. In the first place, they thrive in much cooler weather than most vegetables. English peas grow best when the temperature remains below 65 degrees. A heat spike up to 80 degrees can kill an entire field. Also, peas mature much more quickly than most other vegetables. A pea plant must be started from seed, but it can be ready to harvest only forty-five days after planting. Broccoli, another cool-weather crop, can take as much as three times that long. Favas take three or four weeks longer than English peas (about eighty-five days normally). This is one reason they are more popular in the Mediterranean, where they can be planted in late fall and will survive the mild winter.
Legumes have the happy trait of nurturing the ground in which they’re grown as well as the humans who grow them. The roots of legumes contain nodules that host bacteria called rhizobia. These bacteria have the ability to convert nitrogen from the atmosphere into soilborne forms that can be used by plants, reducing the need for fertilizer. Plant legumes for the spring, and the field will be even more fertile in the fall.
The bright, sweet flavor is the main attraction of peas and beans, but it is as fragile as it is appealing. How do you maintain it from field to plate? Speed and refrigeration are the answer. The sugar that gives fresh peas their flavor vanishes quickly, particularly if they are not stored carefully. Let peas get warm, and that sugar will convert very quickly to starch. This happens almost ten times faster at 70 degrees than it does at 32 degrees. (The latter is perfect for storage, but it is only one degree warmer than the freezing temperature for peas—scant margin in a home refrigerator.) Even storage temperatures warmer than 45 degrees—about the temperature in the top of your refrigerator—can lead to toughening and rapid yellowing. Since storing peas is obviously such a problem, put them in your “dinner the same day” category.
Although English peas and fava beans share so many traits both delicious and exasperating, there is one big difference between them, and that is the maturity at which they should be picked. Peas are best when they are fully mature, so that the little seeds have swollen in the pod. (Petits pois, or baby peas, are not immature peas, but a separate variety that is naturally smaller.)
Fresh favas are best when they are truly babies. Tiny fresh favas are all the rage in Rome during the spring, where they are picked straight from the pod and eaten with moist springtime pecorino Romano, a salty sheep’s milk cheese that perfectly offsets their sweetness. (Feta would be a good alternative.) Favas of that size are so small that the peas don’t bulge in the pod. As long as the peas are less than ½ inch in diameter, favas can be cooked without peeling their outer skins. Another indicator of freshness is the color of the skin: when favas are young, the skin is green; as the bean matures and toughens, the skin turns white. Unlike peas, favas are useful even when they are overmature and starchy. Cook large favas until they are soft and then puree them with a knob of butter.
Sugar snap and snow peas are alternatives to delicate English peas. They are classed by the ag folks with the unpoetic though descriptive tag “edible pod peas.” These are both venerable varieties, in which the pod is as sweet as the pea (or nearly so, anyway). Both fell out of favor in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, only to be reintroduced in the foodie 1970s—snow peas by a thousand Chinese restaurants, and sugar snaps by the enthusiastic marketing of a plant breeder named Calvin Lamborn, who had developed an improved variety.
Lamborn had the bright idea to cross a “sport” pea plant that had formed very hard, tightly sealed walls with the snow pea. His version, introduced in 1979, was so successful that the name “sugar snap,” which originally applied only to his specific variety, has now become acceptable for generic use. Previously, these peas had been called “sugar peas” or “butter peas.”
Snow peas have flat pods; sugar snaps are rounded. Sugar snaps tend to be exuberant: crunchy and very sweet. Snow peas are somewhat subtler. Both will almost always be sweeter than all but the best English peas. This is not because they withstand storage better, but because they start out with more sugar and so are better able to afford the inevitable degradation that storage brings. Although they may be sweeter, neither variety captures the full green “pea” flavor of English peas or favas. Both should be cooked only briefly, if at all. More than a minute or two of blanching or stir-frying, and the advantages are lost.
English Peas and Favas
WHERE THEY’RE GROWN: Neither fresh English peas nor fava beans are grown widely enough to be tracked statistically. English peas are grown for drying, canning and freezing in several states, but predominantly Minnesota, Washington and Oregon. They are also imported from Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America.
HOW TO CHOOSE: Pods should be firm, green and unwrinkled. A little blackening sometimes occurs in fava bean pods. English peas should be swollen in their pods. It is generally considered acceptable to pop a pod and taste a pea before buying. Fava beans should show only as small bumps.
HOW TO STORE: English peas should be stored as briefly as possible, tightly wrapped and refrigerated at the coldest level (in the crisper drawer). Fava beans are more forgiving.
HOW TO PREPARE: English peas should be shucked straight into a pan for cooking—but do not shuck them in advance. Fava beans take an extra step because of their skins. The simplest way to remove the skins is to shuck the beans into a large bowl, then pour boiling water over the top. Let them stand for several minutes before draining. You should be able to break the tight, lighter-colored inner skin with your thumbnail and then squeeze the bean out between your fingers.
ONE SIMPLE DISH: Both English peas and fava beans are delicious simply braised with a little heavy cream and ham. Cut the ham into tiny cubes and render it in butter. Add some minced shallots and then some cream. When the cream has reduced slightly, add the peas or favas and cook just until they are tender and sweet.
Snow Peas and Sugar Snaps
WHERE THEY’RE GROWN: Like English peas and favas, neither is grown widely enough to be tracked statistically. They are also imported from Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America.
HOW TO CHOOSE: Pods should be firm and crisp. Reject any that show signs of wilting. Sugar snap pea pods may show traces of scarring, which does not affect the flavor.
HOW TO STORE: Store as briefly as possible, tightly wrapped and refrigerated at the coldest level (in the crisper drawer).
HOW TO PREPARE: Sugar snap peas and snow peas still have tough fibrous strings that run the length of the pods and must be removed before cooking. Check carefully: some varieties have strings on both sides of the pods.
ONE SIMPLE DISH: The less you cook a snow pea or sugar snap, the better off you’ll be. Anything more than a lightning-quick blanching or stir-frying destroys the crisp texture and bright flavor, which are their most delicious qualities.