OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF HOT GREEN
PEAS.
The sale of hot green peas in the streets is of
great antiquity, that is to say, if the cry of "hot
peas-cod," recorded by Lydgate (and formerly
alluded to), may be taken as having intimated
the sale of the same article. In many parts
of the country it is, or was, customary to have
"Scaldings of peas," often held as a sort of
rustic feast. The peas were not shelled, but
boiled in the pod, and eaten by the pod being
dipped in melted butter, with a little pepper,
salt, and vinegar, and then drawn through the
teeth to extract the peas, the pod being thrown
away. The mention of peas-cod (or pea-shell)
by Lydgate renders it probable that the "scald-
ing" method was that then in use in the streets.
None of the street-sellers, however, whom I saw,
remembered the peas being vended in any other
form than shelled and boiled as at present.
The sellers of green peas have no stands, but
carry a round or oval tin pot or pan, with a
swing handle; the pan being wrapped round
with a thick cloth, to retain the heat. The peas
are served out with a ladle, and eaten by the
customers, if eaten in the street, out of basins,
provided with spoons, by the pea-man. Salt,
vinegar, and pepper, are applied from the ven-
dor's store, at the customer's discretion.
There are now four men carrying on this
trade. They wear no particular dress, "just
what clothes we can get," said one of them.
One, who has been in the trade twenty-five years,
was formerly an inn-porter; the other three are
ladies' shoemakers in the day-time, and pea-
sellers in the evening, or at early morning, in any
market. Their average sale is three gallons
daily, with a receipt of 7s. per man. Seven
gallons a day is accounted a large sale; but
the largest of all is at Greenwich fair, when
each pea-man will take 35s. in a day. Each
vendor has his district. One takes Billingsgate,
Rosemary-lane, and its vicinity; another, the
Old Clothes Exchange, Bishopsgate, Shoreditch,
and Bethnal-green; a third, Mile-end and Step-
ney; and a fourth, Ratcliffe-highway, Lime-
house, and Poplar. Each man resides in his
"round," for the convenience of boiling his
peas, and introducing them to his customers
"hot and hot."
The peas used in this traffic are all the dried
field pea, but dried green and whole, and not
split, or prepared, as are the yellow peas for
soup or puddings. They are purchased at the
corn-chandlers' or the seed-shops, the price
being 2s. the peck (or two gallons.) The peas
are soaked before they are boiled, and swell con-
siderably, so that one gallon of the dried peas
makes rather more than two gallons of the boiled.
The hot green peas are sold in halfpennyworths;
a halfpennyworth being about a quarter of a
pint. The cry of the sellers is, "Hot green
peas! all hot, all hot! Here's your peas hot,
hot, hot!"
