Mushy peas

Posted by Laurie Keller on October 24, 2002

In Reply to: Mushy peas posted by R. Berg on October 09, 2002

: : : : : : : : I have a question regarding 'Pease Porridge Hot'.
: : : : : : : : I'd like to know if there is a significance in the number 9 in the line, '9 days old.' '3 days and 3 nights' is commonly used in Japanese language (i.e. I thought about my decision for 3 days and 3 nights.) I don't think there is a significance in the number 3 here. But it is used commonly. If anyone knows the answer to my question or can tell me a good resource to look into, I'd really appreciate it.
: : : : : : : : Thanks!
: : : : : : : : Erica Howell

: : : : : : : It does seem that it can't be in the pot one day or two days (or maybe three), or the porridge would be edible. If it was seven days old or any number with more than two syllables it wouldn't scan. Apart from that it could be any number.

: : : : : : : Anyone know just exactly what is or what are "Pease" in the porridge or is it porridge made of something called Pease or is it an odd form of plural for "peas" ?
: : : : : : :Sara

: : : : : I am pretty sure this refers to mushy peas. For Americans, mushy peas are green peas mushed up into somethig vaguely like guacamole. It's actually pretty good. It's known for being served in the North of England along with fish and chips. I would not like to speculate about how long a batch lasts but I can imagine nine days easily.

: : : : : As far as the nine days go, I had an idea that maybe there might have been nine days in a week or some ancient measure where the number 9 was important. It would have explain so much, the old porridge, the yards... Alas, I can find no evidence.

: : : : I used eat pease pudding when I was a boy in the East End of London in the 30s and 40s and right up to the 60s. It came with Savaloys - a form of spicy sausage - and was yellow in colour. I guess it was made from some form of lentil.
: : : : In the musical 'Oliver' there's a line in one of the songs which goes: 'pease pudding and savaloys....'.
: : : : The dish is still a traditional East End one, although the East End has changed dramatically since my time.

: : : "Some form of lentil" . . . Peas may be green or yellow. I haven't seen yellow peas sold fresh, but yellow dried split peas can be had, and Mendel tracked color of seed coat -- green vs. yellow -- in his studies of genetics.

: : I'm sure I've seen pease pudding sold canned in out of the way food stores in the UK - though my memory of the picture on the can is that the product was a yellowish-brown colour. Most fish and chip shops in the UK still offer mushy peas as a side order, which is probably the nearest widely available equivalent.

: : Slightly off subject, there are still a few traditional "Pie & Mash" shops scattered around the London area, which offer you an apologetic-looking flattened beef mince pie with a large dollop of mashed potato. This is meant also to be served with with "liquor", which is a largely indescribable, very thin and tasteless parsley sauce/gravy. Jellied eels are available as a side dish for the brave at heart.

: Please don't go on. I now understand why Chinese restaurants in the US so outnumber British restaurants.

Peas (yellow or green) dried, then soaked and cooked in broth or water and mashed to the consistency of mashed potato is a wide-spread peasant dish throughout northern Europe -- in Scandinavia it is traditionally served during the Lenten and/or Easter season (if memory serves, in many places it is THE DISH to serve on Good Friday). It is good, filling fare for cold weather when (in the past) fresh vegetables were unavailable and even stored root vegetables were past their sell-by date. I vaguely remember singing the rhyme in school starting with "one day old" and progressing -- it was a skipping rope rhyme, and at each change, that is at "one day old", "two days old", etc., the girl currently jumping would jump out and the person she pointed to or named would jump in and take the next verse. The idea was to make it to nine without stopping the game.