Previous
Gardener is Sweet on Sugar Snap Peas
June 6, 2007
Gardener is Sweet on Sugar Snap Peas
Farmers' Markets DENISE MILLER For the Journal
EDITOR'S NOTE: This week, we introduce a new feature to Food. Every other Wednesday, Denise Miller of the New Mexico Farmers' Market will spotlight local growers and their products, along with tips on how to cook them.
Getting fresh sugar snap peas home is always a challenge. They seem to disappear. If my daughter is at market with me, they vanish at least twice as fast. "That's a testament to how great snap peas are," says veteran grower Zoe Economou, who has the same problem in her garden. Sometimes her husband doesn't see too many because she picks and eats them while she works.
"They're just so good, sweet and crunchy, and they're great fresh off the vine or in salads," she says.
Sugar snap peas are round and a bit puffy, rather than flat like snow peas, and you can eat them whole or shell them and eat only sweet peas inside.
If you're lucky enough to get some home, they're also good lightly steamed, sautéed or added to a stirfry. Peas that don't get eaten immediately should be refrigerated as quickly as possible to keep their sugar content from turning into starch. Unwashed, unshelled peas stored in the refrigerator in a bag or unsealed container will keep for several days.
One of the oldest field crops known to man, peas are part of the legume family whose plants produce pods with enclosed seeds. It wasn't until the 1970s that sugar snap peas were developed, a cross between garden peas and snow peas.
When you see fresh sugar snap peas at your farmers' market, don't delay your purchase. Their season can be short. That means early to mid-June in the Albuquerque area, and up to several weeks later in Santa Fe and north. Once it gets hot, peas will quit, so it all depends on what the weather is doing and where the grower lives.
Cousins such as fava (actually a member of the pea family), rattlesnake, romano, Kentucky blue and other string beans will start coming up just as snap peas are done for the season. Because they don't mind the heat, they'll be available throughout the summer until the first frost.
Zoe (pronounced "Zo") Economou is big on the legume family, which she says are easy to grow though time-intensive to harvest. "Two things I really like about legumes are that they are nitrogen fixers, feeding the dirt by putting nitrogen from their roots into the soil, and that they are just so good. Whether tasty little snacks like snap peas, or huge, meaty beans like favas, legumes are among my favorites to plant and eat."
Lovage is probably the most unusual crop that Economou brings to market. A leafy aromatic herb with a zingy, celerylike taste, lovage explodes first thing in spring. Economou puts it in soups, salads and in just about everything she cooks.
This year she is experimenting with growing artichokes, a tender perennial she started in January in her hoop house, which is like a greenhouse but not temperaturecontrolled. Time will tell how the artichokes do.
Living just outside the Albuquerque city limits, Economou grows lettuce, asparagus, carrots, parsnips, radishes, onions, tomatoes, garlic and herbs all on about onetenth of an acre. She's been there nearly 25 years and explains that she doesn't have to have a lot of room to grow food. "One cherry tomato plant will give you more cherries than you can probably eat."
Though she grows most of the produce her family consumes, she prefers to call herself a gardener rather than a farmer because of the size of her operation. Title aside, her food is fresh, delicious and pesticide-free. "I'm not certified organic, but I use organic methodology. I'm just too smallscale to take on the amount of bookkeeping organic certification requires."
But organic is not the issue for many growers' market fans. "Local is more important than organic because even if it was grown organically but comes from Chile, it's not fresh anymore," Economou said. "But when you buy local, you know it is fresh and it will be better for you."
Economou also points out that buying local is good for the economy. "It also keeps money rotating in your community, which has a multiplier effect, like planting a seed."
Being a small grower has its challenges. Even with the help of her husband, Claude Stephenson, who regularly tends the garden, Economou said it takes a lot of time and effort.
Ask why she keeps at it, and her answer is so simple you know you are talking to a grower with passion as sweet as the sugar snap peas she adores: "Life is just not complete without a garden."
