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Post by steev on Dec 19, 2014 0:55:05 GMT -5
I started looking into these as food, rather than just cover-crop, green-manure stuff. It seems they're useful as pea-tendrils for salad or cooking, but I'm not finding any info about the peas. Anybody got a clue? Are they just starchy peas, or is there some reason not to eat them?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 19, 2014 1:23:37 GMT -5
I've cooked with Austrian Winter peas before. They cook up fine. They don't have a strange taste or texture. The previously dried peas hold their shape during cooking. I eat them sometimes as shelling peas right out of the pod, but they are super small, so don't seem worth the effort of shelling. I really like eating them as greens. The top 3" of the vines are very tender during the growth stage. They are perhaps my favorite green. Later in the season they are higher protein, due to the pea weevils that hide among the unfolding leaves. In my garden Austrian Winter peas are very late. Even though they may be planted in the fall, they are typically harvested later than the spring planted peas. Here's what they looked like a few years ago on about the same day that I planted the spring peas.  One of the projects that I have been working on is that I crossed Austrian Winter peas with my shortest season garden shelling pea. My intent is to develop a winter hardy shelling pea that can be planted in the fall, and fruit super early in the spring. I currently have F3 seed growing in the garden that was planted in October. I had selected them for heavily wrinkled seeds. Some of them died from frost, some of them didn't show any frost damage when I checked them last week. Woo Hoo! Perhaps the project is moving in the right direction. The critters sure are preying on them. I suppose that I also have seed to go the opposite direction: To develop a shorter season winter soup pea, but I haven't put effort into that because I have plenty of other types of spring planted soup peas. Hmmm. I wonder if I could grow a super-early bearing winter soup pea out in the desert??? Exciting thought. Perhaps it could ripen fruit while there was still residual moisture in the soil from the winter snows. It wouldn't be drought tolerant, but drought avoidant... Growing during the time of the year when there is moisture in the soil in spite of the cold temperatures. |
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Post by steev on Dec 19, 2014 2:16:01 GMT -5
Good; I supposed as much, but just couldn't find any overt confirmation. I would suppose the weevils add an interesting crispness, as well as protein.
The Entomology Department at Cal offers a dinner (a fund-raiser) that is centered on insectophagy; I really must stop failing to get there.
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 19, 2014 7:05:50 GMT -5
Mmm pea weevils…another tab for our forum  |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 2, 2016 11:16:02 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, I just sent you my last remaining seed for Nordost Fruhe Grune peas (which translates as northeast early green). They are rather small seeds so in the end i didn't find much use for them, but they might work well as an Austrian Winter Pea. Obviously the name says that they are early. Probably very cold tolerant. www.schreberarten.ch/Pflanzen/ErbsenKefenLinsen/Erbsen.htm
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 2, 2016 11:40:23 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, I just sent you my last remaining seed for Nordost Fruhe Grune peas (which translates as northeast early green). Thanks. Sounds fun. |
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