Tea at Trianon: Summertime Peas

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Summertime Peas

From Southern Lady:

Here in Alabama in the heat of June and July, the song “Summertime” from the folk opera Porgy and Bess sometimes drifts through my mind. “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy . . . ”

But in midsummer in the Deep South, the livin’ is not so easy, especially if you have coded in your DNA that you must put up enough fresh peas to last you through the winter. I am not talking about English peas that you may just as well buy in a small silver can or in a loose bag in the frozen section of your grocery store. I am talking about the wonderful variety of peas available down South. A few of my favorites are:

Pink eyes, sometimes called purple hulls because purple is the color of the hulls.

Crowders, which are grayish-brown. In both taste and color, they remind my brother of boiled peanuts. (My computer is clearly not Southern—it keeps underlining crowders to tell me it’s not a word.)

Zipper peas, which are technically a “white crowder” although these peas are actually light green in color. I’m told they get their name from the fact you can open them like a zipper and soon have a bowlful.

Little lady peas, also called white acre peas—but not by me ever since I saw the sparkle in my granddaughter’s eyes when I offered her some “little lady” peas, and she accepted with such delight, saying, “I’m a little lady.”

(Read more.)