When I was a kid, I hated to eat peas. They were varying shades of green and brown, rolled around on the plate, rolled off the fork and worst of all were mushy! My parents believed that all children should eat everything on their plate before leaving the table, so as to not waste any food. Peas and sauerkraut were the worst food ever and many a long evening was spent sitting at the dining room table staring at a plate of nutritious, but in our mind, unappetizing food which we refused to eat!
    So if I dislike peas so much, why then do I plant peas in my garden each spring and eagerly look forward to picking the first batch and cooking them for dinner? The simple reason is this...those mushy slime balls masquerading as peas are not related in any way to the uncommon delicacy of fresh spring peas! 
      Fresh picked peas from my home garden are the first herald of spring and the first crop to come from the garden. They represent a summer full of garden fresh vegetables, both nutritious and delicious. And since peas are the first garden crop, they represent the end of a long cold winter! When these peas are picked, shelled and cooked, they do not resemble in any way the canned peas that have been sitting in the pantry for three years!
     Another reason, I love peas fresh out of my garden, is that they remind of my grandmother. My grandmother was a stern German woman who lived through the depression and never forgot the hardships she endured. She always had a huge garden, with enough produce to supply herself, her grown children and family and all the neighbors. As a child I sat on the front step of my Grandmother's modest home and helped her shell peas. As each pea kurplunked into the bucket, her stern demeanor would loosen and occasionally she would actually smile.  After shelling the peas, she would give me a dime and I would spend it all at the ice cream truck that traversed her neighborhood every summer evening after supper.
    Eating that first batch of spring peas encompasses an untold amount of labor. First the peas are planted early in March. It seems too early to be planting anything, there is still a hint of snow in the air. Then after the peas have sprouted, they need to be weeded. A trellis of wire will need to be positioned just so, in order that the plants have proper support. Finally, the peas are harvested. A whole bucket of plump pea pods might yield enough shelled peas to serve three or four hungry people for dinner. The peas are then either steamed or cooked in a small amount of water with salt, pepper and butter. The taste is sublime, but the season for peas is fleeting. In just a about a week or two, all the peas have matured and have been harvested. It is a lot of work for several meals featuring these spring delicacies. But it is worth it for the fresh taste of spring and the memories of my grandmother.