Know your marrows from your mange tout? Your butternut squash from your borlotti beans? Is it bad form to eat peas one at a time? What is the diameter of the average radish? And is it better to serve carrots or spinach with baked trout? Learn more as we begin to 'know your veg'.
There are so many squashes, with so many daft names. Sweet Dumpling, Pattypan, Yellow Crookneck. All squashes, all daft. Courgettes, pumpkins, marrows and our good friend the butternut squash (present inside this pot) are all types of squash too, and can roughly be divided in winter and summer squashes. Summer squashes can be eaten whole, skin and all (like the courgette) whereas winter squashes develop more flavour by being allowed to mature on the vine and thus have a thicker skin, which helps them stay fresher for longer.
The word squash itself is derived from the Massachusett Indian word askutasquash, which means ‘eaten raw’. We have taken the liberty of asking you to quickly cook the ones in this pot. In our humble opinion they taste better that way. We hope you concur.
First of all, we’re not going there. You know, the obvious bean place. We thought about it but it’s a firm no. We shall rise above it.
Instead, we shall enlighten you regarding all things bean. For instance, did you know that beans were invented in the Americas, and that beans, squash and maize were known as the Three Sisters of Native American agriculture? The three crops helped each other out in the growing stakes – the maize gave the beans a structure to climb, the beans provided nitrogen for the soil, and the squash spread across the ground, preventing weeds.
Nature’s good like that. Very helpful. Whatever will she think of next? Perhaps some vegetables, in a nice pot?
Soy beans are clever. They do tricks that no other beans can do. They are Andy Ruffle, they are Lassie, they are Evel Knievel. Clever.
And this is mainly because have a high protein content – 35%, which is much more than any other plant. This protein also supplies a well-balanced mixture of essential amino acids, which basically means that soy beans are very, very good for you and your tired old bones.
We have a man called Englebert to thank for bringing this super crop to us foolish European cheese-eating weaklings. Englebert Kaefner was a German botanist, and brought soya beans back from Asia in 1692, a year that incidentally also saw the beginning of the Salem witch trials. The two events are thought to be unconnected.
We have an issue to deal with. We have found out that peas are actually a fruit, even thought we’ve used them in this clearly labeled veg pot. So why are we deceiving you? Well for one thing, they’re green. And most green stuff that we know is a vegetable.
To be honest, that’s a pretty weak reason. But our next one is much better, and it’s that peas are a good cure for having drunk too much wine, according to a posh French ladies. In 1696 Mme de Maintenon, a close friend of Louis XIV, wrote “Some ladies, having supped well, take peas before going to bed, at the risk of an attack of indigestion. It’s a fashion, it’s a craze.” Indeed.
Peas are clever too. In the mid-1800s, a man called Gregor Mendel had a close look at some pea pods, which led to the principles of Mendelian genetics, the foundation of modern genetics.
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innocent foundation
