I often tease my husband, Troy, about being a “pea baron”. He can get a little obsessive about his favorite veggie during planting season. Each year when we are getting ready to plant, he goes on and on about plowing up more ground and having even more peas than we grew the year before. Then, he moans and groans while they are growing about too much rain or not enough, grass and weed takeovers in the pea patch, bugs – bugs – and more bugs, and “are they ready yet?” He’s like a kid on vacation, “ Are we there yet?, Are we there yet?” Then, it’s complaining about having to pick peas in the heat after we get home from putting in an eight hour day at our paying jobs. Actually, he has expanded our planting area for the peas a little every year. We had to expand to make room for the new peas. We have experimented with several different varieties to see how they grow in our red dirt, the levels of production, resistance to bugs and blight, heat tolerance, and all those other nifty things farmers deal with. So far, we have done well with pink eye purple hulls. Those are Troy’s favorite so are always planted in abundance – no bias here! Purple hull are an eyed pea, similar to black eyed peas, but with a pink eye and, as the name indicates, purple hulls. For the past several years we have planted zipper peas. Zippers are a fatter yellow green pea in the crowder family, but considered a white pea with white pot liquor. They seem to take a little longer to mature and have a yellow hull when ready to harvest. We planted zippers this year, but had poor germination. Because only about 10% grew, we plowed them under and replanted. Hopefully, they will make a better showing with this second planting, although they won’t be ready to harvest until after the others (this is not necessarily a bad thing). We also planted white acre peas, again an eyed pea but with a green eye, also making clear pot liquor. White acres are a smaller pea with a green hull. Due to their somewhat smaller size they are a little more difficult to shell, but very tasty and worth a little more effort in our opinion. Lastly, we have the Dixie lee crowder peas, a fat brown pea with brown pot liquor. This is our first planting of Dixie lees, although we did plant a different variety of brown Crowder’s last year with moderate results. I was explaining to a co-worker about the various types of peas we grow and differences. She is a city girl and unfamiliar with farm life. So, of course her response was, “What in the world is pot liquor?” After all the country girls in the office recovered from our laughing fit, I preceded to explain that pot liquor is the juice you cook vegetables in – in this case, peas. Although you usually start with a water base, it often changes color and definitely flavor, after the vegetables cook. The old timers dubbed it ‘pot liquor’. I remember very well my grandfather saying he preferred peas with brown pot liquor because they had more flavor when he sopped up the juice with his cornbread. Another of those ‘southernisms’. In my personal opinion, I don’t care what color the pot liquor is – I just love my peas!
- Carol McTier