ANCIENT PEAS

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1924, 21 October 1926, Page 8

ANCIENT PEAS

2400 YEARS OLD. I liave just been offered a peck of peas which are the direct progeny of a handful of peas removed from the coffin of an Egyptian mummy in 1910. Experts believe that the mummy and the peas were burled before 500 B.C. says a writer in the Daily Express; These p'eas, therefore, ar'e the descendants of a handful which germinated! after they had slept for more than 2400 years. The mummy was discovered by a Harley Street doctor. In the cozn lay the dried up little balls very much lfike the ordinary pea-seed yoq, may buy anywhere in Engand.

A handful of them was brought home out of curiosity by the doctor, and: he ga ve a score or so to the rector of a Norfolk village. Th e c'lergy'iman threw them carelessly away in a drawer, and forgot <all about them. Two 'years later the rector rediscovered the peas and decided to plant them and see what happened. The peas flourished, and by 1914 he had grown sufficient stock to be able to use them for table purposes, as well as to retain sufficient for seed. Since then the peas have increased each season. Quantities have been given to the local farmers and villagers, who cultivate them.

If you lunch on duck 'and green peas in this Norfolk village, the duck will be Norfolk bred, but the peas will be "mummy" peas, for the vJllagerta now care for no other. "You can see l what the peas are Hike yourself," said the rector to* me. "although they are hardly ripe yet."

I went and saw. There can be no question of the authenticity of these peas. They are; the typical variety which you will see along the banks of the Nile.

The pods are unusually large and .shaped rather likel a canoe, and the plants are about twice the height of the ordinary English pea. "Each pod has seven peas, no more, no less," said the rector, "and unlike the English pea, when the pea is. in flower 'it blossoms right up the stalk.

"For eajting purposes their flavour is better than any othe{r pea I know, and I have tried most of them. They are a little, larger in size than the ordinary pea, and also a great deal sweeter and richer in taste.

"This year I have only one row of them, and I shall probably keep half of that for seed purposes. I have gSven them to a number of people in th e nefighbourhool, and to almost every cottager in the village." I found old men, and young men, old women and young women who would.'talk to me of "mummy" peas and, pointing proudly to the* drooping stalks of their own plants—the pods are so heavy that they weigh th e (stalks down—tell me how good they are to eat.