1st June: Peas

Today, the French Revolutionary Calendar, which assigned a plant, substance or tool to every day, celebrates Peas. Here are some things you may not know about this popular vegetable.

1. Peas have been around a long time. 3,000 year old peas have been found in Thailand; peas dating back to 3800BC-3600BC have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Archaeologists think the pea originally came from the near east in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Syria. The Romans grew over 37 different varieties of peas.
2. They'd certainly reached the UK by the time of the Norman Conquest. The vegetable, when it first arrived in the UK, was called "pease" but evolved into "pea" so people would know whether they were talking about one pea or many.
3. The Latin name for the pea plant is pisum sativum. The UK is the largest producer of peas for freezing - 35,000 hectares of pea plants are grown in the UK in a single year, equivalent to about 70,000 football pitches. The yield is about 160,000 tonnes of frozen peas.
4. The Green peas we eat aren't actually ripe. If they were allowed to ripen, they'd be Yellow. Eating green peas became the fashion in the 17th century. The practice was described as "madness" by the French back then.
5. A pea pod is usually 5-6 inches long and an individual pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 grams. 100 grams of peas contains as much as Vitamin C as two large Apples (66% of the daily requirement) and more fibre than a slice of wholemeal Bread (20%). They also contain sugar, protein, Vitamins A and B6, calcium, iron and magnesium. A 100g serving contains 81 calories.
6. Clarence Birdseye made the first frozen peas in the 1920s. In 1969, the first television commercial broadcast in colour was for Birds Eye frozen peas.
7. Petits pois, despite their French name, were bred in Italy.
8. The leaves of the pea plant are a delicacy in China. And while we're on the subject of things Chinese, Janet Harris from Sussex holds a pea eating record - she ate 7175 peas in a minute using chopsticks.
9. On average, a person in Britain eats more than 9,000 peas a year.
10. Eating peas is said to relieve stomach ulcers because digesting them "uses up" stomach acids. If you boil peas up with Onions and add cinnamon, it is said to be a powerful aphrodisiac.