The Pea That Almost Vanished Forever | The Savers of Flavor | Full Episode

0:05 Thomas Jefferson here.

0:06 Do you know what my favorite variety of vegetable is?

0:10 It's the one that ripens first in my garden each spring.

0:15 David> In every heirloom seed lies a story of survival,

0:20 of resilience, a flavor forgotten by the modern world.

0:25 Join Charleston chef Kevin Mitchell and me,

0:28 food historian David Shields on our mission

0:30 to preserve the long lost flavors of the South.

0:35 We are "The Savers of Flavor."♪ David> Here it is,

0:46 the garden book of Thomas Jefferson.

0:49 I remember reading this years ago.

0:52 Thomas Jefferson and his neighbors every spring would hold a contest

0:56 to see who could supply the first plate of fresh garden peas.

1:01 Despite the fact that Thomas Jefferson grew 15 varieties of peas,

1:06 his neighbor George Divers usually won.

1:10 Mr.

1:11 Divers planted an earlier variety of pea.

1:16 Thomas Jefferson> It is the beginning of spring and the peas have come to table.

1:20 They arrived first from my neighbor, Mr.

1:23 Divers.

1:23 Per usual.

1:25 He confided that he planted the early

1:27 frame pea in February underneath a cold frame.

1:31 He won again, and we celebrated with a delicious plate.

1:35 Mr.

1:35 Cocke and I will try again next year.

1:37 Savor the flavor of Madeira.

1:39 Mr.

1:39 Divers, you have triumphed again.

1:51 David> Well, Kevin, we're off on another adventure.

1:54 I got a call from a magazine editor who's doing a special

1:59 issue on the 250th anniversary

2:01 of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

2:04 The editor wanted to know whether there were

2:06 any foods that the signers would have eaten.

2:10 Back in 1776 that are still available and taste the same in 2026.

2:16 Kevin> Okay.

2:17 And I said, we can do better than that.

2:19 Thomas Jefferson was the chief author

2:22 of the Declaration of Independence, kept a garden book,

2:26 and we know from its pages his favorite vegetable were early spring garden peas.

2:33 Kevin> You know, what's really interesting to me is that through time,

2:36 we've lost a sense of flavor for fresh vegetables.

2:41 We're so used to this convenience of popping peas out of a can

2:47 into a pot and cooking them until their putrid gray green.

2:52 I think back, the cafeteria lady would just

2:55 plop these canned peas and carrots on my tray.

3:00 With instant mashed potatoes.

3:01 Wouldn't it be great?

3:03 We can just go back to when we can eat peas fresh in May,

3:08 in butter, in tarragon, in salt, pepper, and they're beautiful, bright green.

3:13 And they have some texture to them.

3:15 They're not mushy and disgusting, just putrid.

3:19 You know.

3:24 David> There is a pea that has surfaced in the Dutch Fork of South Carolina,

3:31 and I think that it was the pea that Jefferson loved.

3:37 Jefferson wanted the first pea that ripened and that first.

3:41 He was called the early frame pea.

3:45 Kevin> Okay.

3:46 David> Some people call it the old timey English pea.

3:50 Some people call it the May pea.

3:52 Some people call it the Dutch Fork autumn planted pea.

3:56 If you take a look at its characteristics,

3:59 I'm convinced they're one and the same.

4:03 Kevin> This address you've giving me a little mountain,

4:05 this is the house of Rodger Winn.

4:08 So I'm assuming he has this pea?

4:11 David> Yes.

4:11 He's a famous seed saver.

4:14 And he has got a little white pea, and he calls it the Dutch Fork.

4:21 Autumn planted pea.

4:30 Rodger, I see that you've, prepared a welcome for us in the form of a forest

4:37 of, tree jars here and chock full of seed.

4:41 And I'm sure that this is only a fragment of your trove of treasure.

4:46 Rodger> A very small fragment.

4:48 I actually had four freezers that were full

4:50 of stock seed that I've collected over my lifetime.

4:55 These are some of my my favorites.

4:58 Some South Carolina heirlooms,

4:59 plus some others that have sentimental value to them.

5:02 David> Talking about, your lifetime of collecting.

5:06 One of the things that I'm sort of curious

5:08 about is how and when you began collecting seeds.

5:15 Rodger> Probably before I was even in elementary school.

5:18 Like collecting maple seedlings in the spring.

5:21 Planted them and then sold the little trees for a dollar apiece.

5:24 So there's maple trees out there that are 55 years old, 60 years old.

5:29 [laughs] David> The saving of seeds is very much a family enterprise.

5:36 Passing down from grandparents, and when you marry into a family,

5:41 those family seeds get connected to your seeds.

5:46 Is that how it is around here?

5:48 Rodger> I guess it is.

5:49 That was one of the fascinations I had with my wife

5:52 when I first met her, and then went to meet her family.

5:56 They saved seeds.

5:57 They had a big vegetable garden.

5:59 I knew right then and there.

6:01 She was the person I wanted to marry.

6:04 [laughs] David> That's great.

6:06 Kevin> This here, I'm very curious about.

6:08 Which one is this?

6:10 Rodger> This is an okra.

6:13 I spent 20 years in the Navy, in submarines,

6:15 and when I would go out to sea, I brought seeds with me.

6:20 Typically beans, because of the multiple patterns.

6:23 And, it just gave me something to look at.

6:24 I also brought seed catalogs.

6:26 I had a good friend, early 90s, when we were home.

6:31 He was from Mamou, Louisiana,

6:33 and he went back home and was telling his grandmother

6:36 about this guy that grows all these unique vegetables.

6:39 He came back from Christmas vacation with a sandwich

6:42 bag with this okra seed in it.

6:45 Said it was from his grandmother.

6:46 And she said that if, I since I was into the old timey seeds,

6:50 I needed a good old timey gumbo okra.

6:53 Good flavors.

6:54 Definitely not like you would find an okra

6:57 in the farmer's market or the grocery store or whatever.

7:02 It's hard to, some flavors, it's hard to describe, but, definitely a nice okra.

7:09 And especially like the, sentimental attachment to it.

7:13 David> While Hurricane Helene inflicted some damage on his farm,

7:17 it's always a pleasure catching up with Rodger and touring the farm,

7:21 but we came to see if he has seeds

7:24 that are a direct descendant of the Jefferson frame pea.

7:29 I think that this jar here is, perhaps the reason why we've come here.

7:35 Rodger> The star of the show.

7:36 <Yes> A lot of people call it the Thanksgiving Day pea,

7:39 because it was always planted at Thanksgiving.

7:42 My great aunt over in Saluda County always

7:45 planted this and had it in her garden.

7:47 When I met my wife, her family grew this pea, planted it on Thanksgiving Day.

7:51 David> And this would overwinter, right?

7:53 Rodger> Right.

7:54 It would come up, usually get 2 or 3 inches tall.

7:57 I had asked people, you know,

7:58 why plant it in the fall when most people associate

8:01 planting sugar peas or English peas in early spring, February.

8:05 Actually late winter.

8:06 And nobody had a good answer.

8:08 They were like, I don't know.

8:09 We always plant it on Thanksgiving.

8:11 David> And how many peas do you get in a pod?

8:15 Rodger> There's a good many.

8:16 It could be 6 or 8 or down to four, but it's a lot.

8:20 And it takes a lot of peas to make a meal.

8:24 You'll you'll sit there for a while shelling them out.

8:26 Kevin> Well, let me ask.

8:27 Did you eat them fresh?

8:29 Were they in a can or milk or cream?

8:34 ...little salt or pepper?

8:35 Rodger> Salt and pepper.

8:36 You know butter.

8:37 Most people around here just cooked it with with noodles,

8:40 salt, pepper and butter.

8:42 Nothing.

8:42 Nothing fancy.

8:43 And it was something to look forward to for about 4 to 6 weeks in the spring.

8:47 Rodger, thanks for having us here at your farm

8:51 in the Dutch Fork in Little Mountain.

8:55 Rodger> I appreciate ya'll coming out.

8:58 David> We now follow the path

8:59 of the pea to just outside Charlottesville, Virginia,

9:02 where perhaps the most famous of all gardeners,

9:05 Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, cultivated his beloved seeds at Monticello.

9:12 You know, Monticello means, little mountain in Italian.

9:17 So we're going from Little Mountain,

9:19 South Carolina, to Little Mountain, Virginia.

9:21 Kevin> Fantastic.

9:25 David> Kevin, here she is.

9:27 My friend, Peggy Cornett.

9:29 Peggy> Hi, Kevin.

9:31 So nice to see you.

9:32 How are you?

9:32 David> This is Kevin Mitchell, chef scholar.

9:35 Peggy> I see you that, Yes.

9:36 Kevin> Thank you for having us.

9:37 Peggy> Yeah, well, thank you for being here.

9:40 David> So, Peggy, what is the mission here?

9:43 Peggy> Well, Monticello, it's a historic site,

9:46 and we're preserving and educating the public

9:49 about Thomas Jefferson and his gardens at Monticello,

9:52 collecting seed and growing crops that Jefferson

9:55 grew that he documented in his garden book, his letters and memoranda.

9:59 David> We're talking a period around 1760 to Jefferson's death in 1826.

10:06 Peggy> That's right.

10:07 Yeah.

10:07 And he kept remarkable records.

10:09 We think he grew over 330 different varieties

10:12 of vegetables and herbs just in this garden,

10:15 not all at one time, but throughout his lifetime we, were counting.

10:18 Yeah.

10:19 The garden itself was really a laboratory.

10:21 He was growing vegetables from all parts of the world,

10:24 tomatoes and potatoes from South America,

10:26 and cold crops from Europe and and of course,

10:29 peas were very important to Jefferson.

10:31 That was one of the first crops he would plant in the garden every spring.

10:35 I mean, it was sort of a rite of spring to go out and plant peas in the garden.

10:39 Kevin> About how many varieties of peas did he grew?

10:41 Peggy> Well, we believe he grew about 15 varieties at last count.

10:44 So we should go and look at some.

10:46 Kevin> Yeah, let's do that.

10:48 <Okay> Peggy> So this is a Prince Albert.

10:50 David> So this is the famous pea that supplanted

10:53 the early frame in the grand scheme of things.

10:56 Why do you think that it prevailed in the 1840s?

11:00 Peggy> Well, I think it was the more vigorous pea that would, you know,

11:04 repeat bloom so you could continually harvest from it after the first picking.

11:08 I think the taste was probably similar.

11:11 David> The problem with the early frame is

11:13 that once it's ripened and you pick the pods, Peggy> The whole thing just goes.

11:17 David> It wilts.

11:18 It dies.

11:19 It turns yellow.

11:21 Peggy> So the Prussian blue pea,

11:23 notice the bluish cast to the foliage, which gives it that name.

11:26 And also the pea itself is definitely a historic variety,

11:30 so it's not one you're going to find very often.

11:32 But it's very important for us to preserve this in our collections.

11:36 Some of these things we let go to seed

11:38 so much that I don't really get to taste them.

11:41 Kevin> Yeah, this is really good.

11:44 Peggy> We'll just eat them all.

11:45 <Yeah> I don't think we're going to save any.

11:48 Kevin> While Jefferson may be known

11:50 for his meticulous record keeping in the garden,

11:52 he was also very influential in the culinary world.

11:57 James Hemings, whose story I'm very fascinated with, he was a slave.

12:01 And, you know, Thomas Jefferson sent them to France to really

12:04 try to understand and learn the beauty of French cuisine,

12:07 because, you know, we know that Jefferson was this huge Francophile.

12:11 He loved everything French, food, wine, so on and so forth.

12:15 So having an enslaved person go to France

12:19 to learn that cuisine is really fascinating to me.

12:23 His influences have lasted hundreds and hundreds of years and influences

12:28 chefs today from what he did then to where we are now.

12:37 Peggy> So I want to introduce you to my colleague Michael Tricomi.

12:41 He's a curator of historic gardens at Monticello,

12:44 <Hello> and he's been working on this special project to grow

12:47 the, David> We've been in email contact over the years.

12:50 So, it's, great to see you, face to face.

12:53 Michael> Nice to meet you in person.

12:54 Yes.

12:55 So here we have the early frame tea,

12:56 and we're experimenting with growing it here and trying to get as much

12:59 seed from it as possible so we can propagate it in Jefferson's garden.

13:03 David> I've encountered descriptions of people planting in England,

13:09 this in November, having it overwinter, and the plant reactivate.

13:14 Have you heard about this sort of method of propagation of peas around here?

13:19 We haven't done that here on the mountaintop.

13:22 Michael> We've definitely been successful in overwintering quite

13:25 a bit of lettuces and greens and brassicas, cabbages and things like that.

13:29 We haven't done it with peas.

13:30 If we had a cold frame with a lid, we probably could do that.

13:33 <Sure> In the garden, which is what they do a lot of times

13:37 in Colonial Williamsburg there been doing that sort of thing.

13:40 David> I guess that's where the name of the pea comes from.

13:42 <Early frame> The early frame pea that had a cold frame.

13:47 I noticed that there is a double blossom here,

13:51 and there was a distinction made among some early

13:56 frame peas in terms of single blossom versus double blossom.

14:00 So there were two varieties grown.

14:03 I wonder if this is a double blossom.

14:06 Peggy> Sure looks like it.

14:08 <Yeah> David> Well, you know why the people

14:10 would love that you double the pods, too.

14:13 Peggy> When you were growing this specifically here

14:16 so you could surround it with chicken wire.

14:17 Michael> Yes.

14:18 We wanted to make extra sure that we,

14:21 are protecting these because it's such an important variety

14:24 and we have such little seed, like you said.

14:26 So making sure that these, are able

14:29 to fruit and we can harvest is very important.

14:31 Kevin> There's another one behind you, too.

14:33 Peggy> Yeah.

14:33 They're all double.

14:35 David> That nails it down.

14:36 It's got to be the early frame double blossom pea.

14:40 Kevin and I are headed over to Tufton Farm,

14:42 the site of the Thomas Jefferson Center of Historic Plants,

14:46 where Peggy archives plants and seeds at Monticello.

14:50 Peggy> Well, I want to introduce everybody to Roger Gettig,

14:53 director of horticulture at Monticello.

14:54 And he's here with me at the center for Historic Plants.

14:58 Where we propagate and grow a lot of the plants.

15:00 Roger> Nice to meet you.

15:02 Welcome.

15:02 David> I see we have.

15:03 Peggy> Well, I wanted to show you the peas we were enjoying in the garden.

15:07 The blue Prussian pea.

15:09 <Yes> Kevin> This is my new favorite pea.

15:10 Peggy> That's right.

15:11 We're going to be growing this pea.

15:13 So basically, we just kind of open it up and, there's

15:16 about what we decided about 20 seeds in a packet or more.

15:20 Roger> There's different size scoops for different seeds.

15:22 Peggy> The largest scoop the number 17 and we'll show you the others.

15:26 Actually you don't have to lick it.

15:27 <I don't?> It's self Sealing.

15:28 Yeah.

15:29 You just bend it over and press.

15:31 Kevin> This work you're doing with seeds.

15:33 Why is that important?

15:34 Peggy> There's a great movement to preserve, native plants.

15:38 But in some ways, these cultivated plants are just as much,

15:41 if not more endangered because you have

15:43 to keep them growing in order to preserve them.

15:45 Roger> You tasted this and you love it,

15:48 but it was replaced over time with other peas,

15:52 by Prince Albert and things like that.

15:54 So, whenever we grow peas and we don't want them to mix,

15:58 we grow them in different years or different

16:01 ends of the gardens or different gardens,

16:02 so we can make sure that the bee is not

16:06 mixing them because we want to keep the strains pure.

16:08 Peggy> The main thing about saving seed, just keep it dry.

16:12 You don't have to put it in the freezer.

16:14 Roger> Don't put it in the freezer.

16:15 Peggy> In fact don't do that.

16:16 And, you don't have to refrigerate it.

16:17 I mean, we keep them cool for, you know, the ones that we preserve here.

16:21 It's the humidity that won't lose the viability of seeds.

16:25 Roger> Right?

16:26 So if you want to save something, it's the opposite of growing it.

16:28 So, cool, dark and dry.

16:30 <Yep> It'll stay fine.

16:32 Warm, moist and sunny.

16:33 It'll start to germinate.

16:34 So you want, you can be in a cellar in a sealed jar.

16:38 You don't want it in your refrigerator in case there's a leak,

16:40 the ethylene from your ripening fruit

16:42 in the refrigerator might impact the seeds.

16:44 David> Could we actually see your seeds storage?

16:48 Peggy> I think we could take you out there.

16:52 So we're in, what we call the cool bot.

16:55 And so here we have the Monticello seeds.

16:57 These are seeds collected from the gardens.

16:59 These packets were painted from live plants

17:01 that were grown in the gardens at Monticello.

17:03 So it's a local artist named Tim

17:06 O'Kane who made these beautiful paintings for us.

17:08 This is another flower that's named after Meriwether Lewis.

17:12 It's Lewis' Prairie Flax.

17:15 And again, this is painted from plants in the garden at Monticello.

17:19 [sound of truck engine] David> Now that we found

17:24 and actually picked some of the rarest peas in the world,

17:27 it's time for chef to get to work.

17:31 Kevin, you have a wonderful array of ingredients here.

17:34 Tell us what you are going to prepare for us.

17:37 Kevin> I got a couple surprises for you,

17:39 so we're going to do two dishes featuring peas, Of course.

17:42 One will be more historical and one is

17:44 going to be a little bit more contemporary.

17:47 So the first thing we're going to do is a cup of this Moruga Hill rice.

17:51 We have one cup of rice.

17:53 David> Jefferson brought Hill rice over from West Africa in 1787.

17:58 Kevin> Two cups of water, we throw in some bacon,

18:03 a little bit of butter and then I like to do a little bit of pepper.

18:08 David> That idea of boiled bacon is a very 18th century cooking idea.

18:12 You know, that's old school cooking.

18:16 Kevin> I like it nice and crispy, fried.

18:18 So, we'll cover this up a little bit, and we'll let that go.

18:21 Now on to the second more contemporary dish.

18:24 We've got bacon.

18:25 [sizzling sound] You hear that?

18:28 That's what you want to hear.

18:30 All right.

18:31 Nice sizzle.

18:32 I want to add just a little bit of butter.

18:35 That's going to add a little bit more additional fat to this.

18:40 But this is going to be kind of fried but still a little bit of boiled,

18:44 too when we add the the add the water to it.

18:47 Now for this I like to add some shallots to it.

18:49 As soon as you get that aroma it's good to go.

18:52 And so now I'm going to add my rice.

18:56 Beautiful Carolina Gold rice.

18:58 This will go in.

19:00 And then what we're going to do here is

19:02 we're going to do a process called toasting the rice,

19:06 where basically what we're doing is we're covering each grain of rice in fat.

19:15 Because the key to this rice is once it's cooked that the rice is separate.

19:20 It's not like sticky rice or sushi rice.

19:23 And when you can kind of start to smell the rice browning,

19:28 that's when you can add in your water.

19:33 Just enough to cover.

19:36 This will come to a boil and then we'll

19:38 cover it and we'll cook this for about 12 minutes.

19:41 But halfway through I'm going to throw in the peas.

19:44 Now these peas, just regular English peas blanched in boiling salted water.

19:49 Bring the water to a boil.

19:51 Drop your peas in.

19:52 It comes to another boil instantly out of that hot water into some ice water.

19:58 I'll just throw these peas in there.

20:04 And then I'll check on the others.

20:06 So we do about three tablespoons of benne in here.

20:11 Toast the benne here.

20:14 What I can do now is add the early frame peas here.

20:19 <All right> And we have some.

20:22 <Beautiful> So about a half a cup.

20:26 But, these are really good.

20:28 We definitely do more than that.

20:30 Just leave them in here long enough so they kind

20:32 of warm through and they soak up some of that moisture here.

20:37 Time to check on the benne seeds.

20:39 David> That's lovely looking.

20:41 Kevin> So now we're just going to pour them in this mortar and pestle.<Wow>

20:45 Then I will add the chili or what we're using here are jalapenos.

20:51 Just small dice.

20:52 Got a little bit of the seeds in there because you want,

20:54 you do want a little bit of spice.

20:56 And that's where the spice is.

20:58 <Yep> A little bit of salt.

21:00 Little chopped cilantro.

21:03 And then just.

21:05 David> Grind it up.

21:06 Peggy> Wow.

21:07 Look at that.

21:09 That looks so good.

21:10 Kevin> All right.

21:11 Clean as you go.

21:13 So we're going to, I'm going to dish this up for you guys.

21:20 That's enough.

21:21 Yes.

21:21 Peggy> Oh yeah.

21:23 Kevin> All right, all right <That is amazing> like I said

21:27 we're going to, <the difference> going to leave that bacon on there.

21:34 Peggy> Thank you very much.

21:35 David> Put a lot of that on for mine.

21:36 Kevin> Yes, sir.

21:39 David> That'll be okay.

21:41 Kevin> Here you go.

21:42 Bon appetit.

21:43 Bon appetit.

21:45 Enjoy.

21:46 Yes.

21:48 David> There's a smoky quality to this red rice dish.

21:51 <Yeah> And the benne provides this little crunchy topping.

21:56 It's wonderful.

21:58 And the undercurrent of bacon is, it gives it a little slipperiness.

22:04 And the peas, well they're wonderful.

22:08 Peggy> They're cooked just perfectly I think.

22:11 David> Well chef, I think it's time to award you the Madeira bottle here.

22:34 With the rise of globalization and the dominance of the supermarket,

22:38 we've lost sight of why heirlooms like the early frame pea matter,

22:43 their ability to thrive in cold weather and their exceptional flavor

22:48 truly go hand in hand like two peas in a pod.

22:59 Gardeners are known for having a poetic streak and, I found

23:05 a wonderful pea poem by a gardener named Peter Burn, written in 1885.

23:12 It's called "Sow Afresh." Two Cottagers in gardening, skilled in early spring.

23:22 There are acres tilled, and raising fruit was known full well.

23:29 Each sought the other to excel.

23:33 Yet there existed twixt the two a friendship, honest, firm and true.

23:39 Green peas, a favorite dish was then, and so it was now among most men.

23:46 And he who first this dainty raised was loudly by his neighbors, praised.

23:55 The time by these men was set on which

24:00 they should their seed peas get and got they were,

24:05 and it was said the same day, saw them duly led.

24:11 Not many weeks had they been sown one low an inch or more had grown,

24:19 each viewed with pride his little plot.

24:23 Each boasted of a noble lot.

24:26 But came a frost and morning found both growths of peas struck to the ground.

24:36 Friends, if these fellows had had a cold tolerant pea like

24:42 the early frame pea that contest would have continued to the end.

24:47 But as the poem's title says, so again.