Pea soup
Encyclopedia
Soup
Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...
made, typically, from dried pea
Pea
A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit, since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking...
s. It is, with variations, a part of the cuisine of many cultures. It is greyish-green or yellow in color depending on the regional variety of peas used; all are cultivars of Pisum sativum
Pea
A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit, since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking...
.
Pea soup has been eaten since antiquity; it is mentioned in Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
' The Birds
The Birds (play)
The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BCE at the City Dionysia where it won second prize. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs...
, and according to one source "the Greeks and Romans were cultivating this legume about 500 to 400 BC. During that era, vendors in the streets of Athens were selling hot pea soup."
Britain and Ireland
A well-known nursery rhyme which first appeared in 1765 speaks of- Pease porridge hot,
- Pease porridge cold,
- Pease porridge in the pot
- Nine days old.
"Pease" is the archaic singular form of the word "pea"--indeed, "pea" began as an incorrect back-formation
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889...
.
Pease pudding
Pease pudding
Pease pudding, sometimes known as pease pottage or pease porridge, is a boiled vegetable product, which mainly consists of split yellow or Carlin peas, water, salt, and spices, often cooked with a bacon or ham joint...
was a high-protein low-cost staple of the diet and, made from easily stored dried peas, was an ideal form of food for sailors, particularly boiled in accompaniment with salt pork
Salt pork
Salt pork or white bacon is salt-cured pork. It is prepared from one of three primal cuts: pork side, pork belly, or fatback. Depending on the cut, respectively, salt pork may be lean, streaky or entirely fatty. Made from the same cuts as bacon, salt pork resembles uncut slab bacon, but is...
which is the origin of pea (and ham) soup. Although pease was replaced as a staple by potatoes during the nineteenth century, the food still remains popular in the national diet in the form of "mushy peas
Mushy peas
Mushy peas are dried marrowfat peas which are first soaked overnight in water and then simmered with a little sugar and salt until they form a thick green lumpy soup. They are a traditional British accompaniment to fish and chips and sometimes mint is used as a flavouring...
" commonly sold as the typical accompaniment to fish and chips
Fish and chips
Fish and chips is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada...
, as well as with meat pies.
In 19th century English literature, pea soup is referred to as a simple food and eating it as a sign of poverty. In a Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
novel, when a character asks his wife "Why don't you ask some of our old friends? Old Mrs. Portman has asked us twenty times, I am sure, within the last two years," she replies, with "a look of ineffable scorn," that when "the last time we went there, there was pea-soup for dinner!" In Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British...
, Tess remarks that "we have several proofs that we are d'Urbervilles... we have a very old silver spoon, round in the bowl like a little ladle, and marked with the same castle. But it is so worn that mother uses it to stir the pea-soup."
A soup of this sort made with yellow split-peas is called a London particular after the thick yellow smog
Smog
Smog is a type of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Modern smog is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine...
s for which London was famous until the Clean Air Act
Clean Air Act 1956
The Clean Air Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in response to London's Great Smog of 1952. It was in effect until 1964, and sponsored by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in England and the Department of Health for Scotland.The Act introduced a number of...
.
Canada
Soupe aux pois (jaunes) (yellow pea soup) is a traditional dish in Quebec cuisine. One source says "The most authentic version of Quebec's soupe aux pois use whole yellow peas, with salt pork and herbs for flavour. After cooking, the pork is usually chopped and returned to the soup, or sometimes removed to slice thinly and served separately... Newfoundland Pea Soup is very similar, but usually includes more vegetables such as diced turnips and carrots, and is often topped with small dumplings called dough boys."A novel about nineteenth-century Canadian farmers by Louis Hemon
Louis Hémon
Louis Hémon , was a francophone writer best known for his novel Maria Chapdelaine.- Biography :He was born in Brest, France. In Paris, where he resided with his family, he was enrolled in the Montaigne and Louis-le-Grand secondary schools...
, entitled Maria Chapdelaine
Maria Chapdelaine
Maria Chapdelaine is a novel written in 1913 by the French writer Louis Hémon, who was then residing in Quebec.-Adaptations:The novel has had three film adaptations, two French and one Québécois: in 1934, by Julien Duvivier, with Madeleine Renaud , and Jean Gabin , partly filmed in Péribonka; in...
, depicts pea soup as common farmhouse fare:
- Already the pea-soup smoked in the plates. The five men set themselves at table without haste, as if sensation were somewhat dulled by the heavy work...
- "...Most of you farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard, and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you are well seated at table, a child is yelling:—'The cows are over the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up and runs... And when you have managed to drive the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you."
In Newfoundland, split peas are cooked in a bag as part of a Jiggs dinner.
Germany
One of the very first instant products was a pea soup product, which mainly consisted of pea meal and beef fat ("Erbswurst": pea sausage). It was invented in 1867 by Johann Heinrich Grüneberg, who sold the recipe to the Prussian state. When the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
broke out, the war ministry, which had previously tested the possibility of feeding soldiers solely on instant pea soup and bread, built a large manufacturing plant and produced between 4,000 and 5,000 tons of Erbswurst for the army during the war. In 1889, the Knorr instant-food company bought the license. Knorr, which is today a Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
brand, continues the production of Erbswurst to the present day.
See also: Erbsensuppe (German Wikipedia)
Netherlands
Erwtensoep, also called "snert", is the DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
version of pea soup. It is a thick stew of green split peas, different cuts of pork, celeriac
Celeriac
Celeriac is also known as celery root, turnip-rooted celery or knob celery. It is a kind of celery, grown as a root vegetable primarily for its large and bulbous hypocotyl rather than for its stem and leaves. The swollen hypocotyl is typically used when it is about 10–12 cm in...
or stalk celery
Celery
Apium graveolens is a plant species in the family Apiaceae commonly known as celery or celeriac , depending on whether the petioles or roots are eaten: celery refers to the former and celeriac to the latter. Apium graveolens grows to 1 m tall...
(Apium graveolens var. dulce), onions, leek
Leek
The leek, Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum , also sometimes known as Allium porrum, is a vegetable which belongs, along with the onion and garlic, to family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Allioideae...
s, carrots, and often potato. Slices of rookworst
Rookworst
Rookworst is a type of Dutch sausage in which ground meat is mixed with spices and salt and stuffed into a casing . Rookworst is a traditional ingredient in stamppot...
(Dutch smoked sausage) are added a few minutes before serving. The soup, which is traditionally eaten during the winter, is emblematic of Dutch cuisine
Dutch cuisine
Dutch cuisine is shaped by the practice of fishing and farming, including the cultivation of the soil for raising crops and the raising of domesticated animals, and the history of the Netherlands.-History:...
.
It is customarily served with rye bread
Rye bread
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various percentages of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour...
(roggebrood) and bacon, cheese or butter. The bacon is usually 'katenspek'; bacon which has been cooked and then smoked. The pork and sausage from the soup can also be eaten separately on rye bread together with mustard.
So called 'koek en zopie' outlets, small food and drinks stalls which only spring up during winters along frozen canals, ponds and lakes in the Netherlands and cater to ice skaters, usually serve "snert" as a hearty snack.
In Suriname, a former dutch colony, dutch style pea soup is eaten as a street food.
Nordic countries
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
share many cultural traditions, including that of the pea soup (Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
ärtsoppa; Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
hernekeitto ; Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
ertesuppe; Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
gule ærter). In Sweden and Finland it is traditional to eat pea soup on Thursdays, served with pork
Pork
Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
and mustard
Mustard (condiment)
Mustard is a condiment made from the seeds of a mustard plant...
and pancake
Pancake
A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake prepared from a batter, and cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan. Most pancakes are quick breads; some use a yeast-raised or fermented batter. Most pancakes are cooked one side on a griddle and flipped partway through to cook the other side...
s for dessert, in Sweden accompanied by Swedish punsch as beverage. In Finland the soup is made of green peas, in Sweden yellow. The tradition of eating pea soup and pancakes on Thursdays is said to originate in the pre-Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
era, as preparation for fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
on Friday.
Scandinavian pea soup normally includes pieces of pork – although it may sometimes be served on the side – and a typical recipe would also include some onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
and herbs such as thyme
Thyme
Thyme is a culinary and medicinal herb of the genus Thymus.-History:Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming. The ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage...
and marjoram
Marjoram
Marjoram is a somewhat cold-sensitive perennial herb or undershrub with sweet pine and citrus flavours...
. It is usually eaten with some mustard, often accompanied by crisp bread
Crisp bread
Crisp bread or hard bread is a flat and dry type of bread or cracker, containing mostly rye flour...
and often with the sweet liquor punsch
Punsch
Punsch is a traditional liqueur in Sweden and to a lesser extent some other Nordic countries produced from arrack, neutral spirits, sugar, water, and various flavorings...
(served hot). Mustard is an important part of the dish, but the soup is served without it so that diners can stir it in to taste. The soup is then normally followed by pancake
Pancake
A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake prepared from a batter, and cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan. Most pancakes are quick breads; some use a yeast-raised or fermented batter. Most pancakes are cooked one side on a griddle and flipped partway through to cook the other side...
s with jam (strawberry
Strawberry
Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...
, raspberry
Raspberry
The raspberry or hindberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves...
, blueberry
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
, cloudberry
Cloudberry
Rubus chamaemorus is a rhizomatous herb native to alpine and arctic tundra and boreal forest, producing amber-colored edible fruit similar to the raspberry or blackberry...
or similar) which are regarded more as part of the meal than as a dessert.
Thursday pea soup is common in restaurants and households, and is an unpretentious but well-liked part of social life. Swedish Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson
Per Albin Hansson
Per Albin Hansson , was a Swedish politician, chairman of the Social Democrats from 1925 and two-time Prime Minister in four governments between 1932 and 1946, governing all that period save for a short-lived crisis in the summer of 1936, which he ended by forming a coalition government with his...
(1885–1946) had a circle of friends, jokingly referred to as the "peralbinians" (peralbinerna), who for a number of years came to his home every Thursday to eat pea soup, drink hot punsch and play bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
. Pea soup with pancakes is, with few exceptions, served (either for lunch or dinner) every Thursday in the Swedish Armed Forces
Swedish Armed Forces
The Swedish Armed Forces is a Swedish Government Agency responsible for the operation of the armed forces of the Realm. The primary task of the agency is to train, organize and to deploy military forces, domestically and abroad, while maintaining the long-term ability to defend the Realm in the...
and the Finnish Defense Forces – a tradition dating back to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Pea soup is also often served to large crowds in gatherings, simply because it is easy to make in large amounts and most people like it to some extent. Finns learn to eat pea soup as children, as it is a popular school food, being very cheap and easy to prepare.
The death of the deposed and imprisoned king Eric XIV
Eric XIV of Sweden
-Family and descendants:Eric XIV had several relationships before his marriage. With Agda Persdotter he had four daughters:#Margareta Eriksdotter , married 1592 to Olov Simonsson, vicar of Horn....
in 1577 is usually said to have come from eating a bowl of poisoned pea soup; a 20th century investigation of his remains indeed found traces of arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
, and there is historical evidence that his brother John
John III of Sweden
-Family:John married his first wife, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland , house of Jagiello, in Vilnius on 4 October 1562. In Sweden, she is known as Katarina Jagellonica. She was the sister of king Sigismund II Augustus of Poland...
intended to poison him, but the tradition about the pea soup as a vessel for the poison has been found impossible to confirm.
United States
In the United States, pea soup is merely one of many familiar kinds of soup. "Pea soup" without qualification usually means a perfectly smooth puree. "Split Pea Soup" is a slightly thinner soup with visible peas, pieces of ham or other pork, and vegetables (most commonly carrots) and is usually made from dried, green split peaSplit pea
Split peas are the dried, peeled and split seeds of Pisum sativum. In north India, they are generally known as matar ki daal, sometimes used as a cheaper variation for the very popular chhole on stalls offering it. . They come in yellow and green varieties. The peas are round when harvested and dried...
s.
The dish is perhaps most popular in New England
Cuisine of New England
New England cuisine is an American cuisine which originated in the northeastern region of the United States known as New England.It is characterized by extensive use of seafood and dairy products, which results from its historical reliance on its seaports and fishing industry, as well as extensive...
, where it was introduced by French-Canadian millworkers in the 19th century.
Many cookbooks contain a recipe or two, but pea soup has a limited cultural presence in the United States outside of the Northeast. It does however play a role in the light-hearted tradition of serving green-colored foods on St. Patrick's Day. For example, a 1919 Boston Globe article suggests a suitable menu for "A St. Patrick's Day Dinner" leading off with "Cream of Green Pea Soup (American Style)," and continuing with codfish croquettes with green pea sauce, lettuce salad, pistachio ice cream, and "green decorated cake."
External links
- The homely fare of Sweden Detailed article about the Thursday pea soup tradition
- French Canadian Pea Soup Quebec soupe aux pois vs. Newfoundland pea soup