Snow pea

Lathyrus oleraceus

legume · vegetable

A pea eaten with its flat, sweet pod, picked before the peas swell; raw, stir-fried or steamed, just crunchy.

Origin

European selection

Season (United States)

April to July · grows in your region

Preparation

Only the string is removed, if it has one. Its skin is eaten, and that is where its polyphenols sit: worth keeping, then — but under running water, rubbing it, which is what takes off most of what settles there, organic or not. Its lectins need a real boil, not just warmth.

Molecules

What slows things down Lectins

Did you know?

Eating the whole pod is recorded as early as the 16th century in the Netherlands and France; the sugar snap, with a round, fleshy pod, only appeared in 1979 in the United States.