Pea Soup and Johnny Cake

It must be time for some more nostalgia.  Looking into the food pantry at home recently, I noticed a long lost package of whole, dried yellow peas.  Uh huh!  I thought.  How long is it since I’ve had any “soupe aux pois à la Québeçoise”?  Understand that this is unlike green, split pea soup.  The recipe that I grew up with during the Depression years required whole, yellow peas.  Today you can still find some in most grocery or whole foods stores.   Back in the thirties we got some in Uncle Sullivan’s granary which was in the barn that had been built by our grandfather, Xavier.

Of course, in those days farmers still used horses, and horses require oats as well as hay.  Both oats and yellow peas are cool weather crops very suitable for both Chazy Lake and Quebec.  It seems that there was a serendipitous relationship in growing them simultaneously in the same plot of earth.   Naturally, the ground was first fertilized with horse and other dung the previous fall.  In the spring a mixture of oats and peas were sowed together, with oats predominating.  The pea stems have tendrils for climbing, and so the pea plants would climb the oat stalks where they would produce pretty white blossoms at the appropriate time.  The two species must have liked one another since peas are legumes and nitrogen develops in their roots, thus enriching the soil.  Old Sullivan King, Séraphin, must have brought this type of cultivation from his Quebec connection.  Peas with salted pork was the main diet of the Voyageurs who paddled from Lachine near Montreal all through the Great Lakes and beyond in search of furs for which they traded with the Indians.

Anyway, getting back to Chazy Lake and Depression food, Mother would send us to the granary with a container.  Hanging next to an opening there was a slotted sieve used to sort the peas from the oats which had been raised and harvested together.   When we were kids we called this recipe “Frenchmen’s Pea Soup”.

To make the recipe Mother would first place the dried peas in a flat cake pan and remove any little pebbles, bugs, or whatever didn’t belong.  Then the peas were allowed to soak overnight in a larger pan.  In the morning the first water was drained away.  Fresh water was added along with a meaty ham hock.  Sometimes she used a slab of spare ribs.  Remember that we raised our own pigs.  The pea soup was allowed to simmer on the wood-burning stove most of the day and was consumed during the evening meal where it was served with corn bread or Johnny cake.

Anyhow, after soaking, I made my version by placing everything in a cast iron kettle and baking it in the oven at 225 deg.  I also added some pork ribs, carrots, and onions.  And don’t forget the Johnny cake.  This meal brought back fond memories.  I guess that I may try using the crockpot next time.  Corn bread, of course, was another Depression food staple.