(Rhythmic background singers quietly rapping Pease Porridge hot/ Pease Porridge cold/ Pease Porridge in a pot/ Nine days old) (Repeat until end of song.)
I love you Leo Dried Peas for being in a beautiful box and no one thinking to redesign you for decades…
I love you Leo Dried Peas for making it easy to misread “Steeping Tablet*” for “Sleeping Tablet” and having a lion there, who feels incongruous with the humble pea except in reference to the name “Leo.”
I love you Leo Dried Peas for making mushy peas and pea soup and pea hummus.**
I love you Leo Dried Peas to plant on the kitchen window sill and have pea shoots for salads and stir fries in the winter (see photo below)
I love you Leo Dried Peas for letting me cultivate you a little bigger to have large leaves to cook as greens
I love you Leo Dried Peas for growing for us, in our garden, finally, in the middle of September, after a series of abandoned experiments, three Proper Pea Pods, each with two fresh peas.
I love you Leo Dried Peas, love you love you love you Leo Dried Peas, a love that if it dies will regenerate as is the nature of the cycle of a plant from seed to plant to pod to seed…
I love you Leo Dried Peas for being 65pence for 250 grams of said seed, really, and available at my local greengrocers as well as at the Co-op.
And I love you Leo Dried Peas, I guess you could even be a leguminous nitrogen-fixing green-manure to help improve the situation in my raised beds–***
Leo Dried Peas, if you please….
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*a bicarbonate of soda tablet to soften the pea-walls during soaking
**pureed, lemony, garlicky and add dillweed if possible
***comments from experienced gardeners welcome
Sprouting the peas: a great nibble for a passer-by, and soon to grow into a proper pea-shoot.
Kitchen Counter Culture 
These are whole, dried peas? Available for eating? I don’t think we have those in the US. Only split peas. I’m jealous! Pea shoots are the best. Love to saute them in bacon grease and serve with fried eggs for breakfast. Mmmmmm.
I think of them as “marrowfat” peas- whole dried peas that can begin the whole cycle of the pea again. I think of how the pea was a really important food for Northern Europe, and so true in Britain. Jane Grigson in her book Vegetable Cookery talks about how the ubiquity of the frozen pea has taken away our appreciation of the true special delicousness of the fresh pea… eating my fresh peas grown from this dried pea was, truly, an experience — very sweet and tender. In Britain, people really do eat “Mushy Peas,” especially but not only with Fish and Chips (maybe also with ham) — often comes in tins and is an incredible, lurid green. But made from boiled Marrotfat Peas (i.e. Leo’s Dried Peas for the brand-loyal) and … mushed! PS- I just read you can make wasabi peas from them– going to investigate.
Oh please DO make wasabi peas from them as they are one of my absolute favourites and I don’t mind being your quality control taster! YUM!
Wasabi peas….yes!! Might do that with my Leos’ too
I bought my first pack after reading this, think I try the pea soup first 🙂
I want to try it! And the next one you can curry!
Never thought to raise pea spouts during the winter months, thanks for the great idea – I shall definitely do this. I know the boxes well and, like you, love the way nobody has desired to redesign the packaging – it is a classic.
Just stumbled upon this nice blog about growing peashoots on the web http://www.abundantfuture.co.uk/2013/02/28/grow-your-own-pea-shoots/#more-740
[…] had impulsively thrown some marrowfat peas on one of our raised beds, and they grew so fast they were hiding our beloved chives and […]
Leo peas are a staple of my life. When I was a child we had them every Sunday with a roast dinner and sometimes with faggots and chips in the week. I love the packaging, I love the process. I am steeping some tonight because we’re in lockdown and it doesn’t have to be a Sunday to have a roast dinner any more… but I never knew you could plant them.
My cup overfloweth. Thank you 🌱