Know your Mange Tout

• • There are two types of mange tout peas.

    1. Snow peas are flat-podded peas, where the pod remains flat and the peas do not swell.

    2. Snap peas or sugarsnap peas or round-podded peas, which swell within the pod but the pod remains edible.

Snow peas

• The snow pea (Pisum sativum var. saccharatum) is a variety of pea eaten whole in its pod while still unripe.

• The name mangetout (French for "eat all") can apply both to snow peas and to snap peas.

• It is one of the earliest-known cultivated plants, with evidence of having been cultivated in a region that is now along the Thailand-Burma border, 12,000 years ago.

• It is speculated that the name comes from the whitish tint reflected from the pods. It also may come because of their tendency to grow at the end of winter, just before the last spring freeze. They can be covered with snow - hence the name - during these times, but still keep growing well.

• As with all legumes, snow peas host beneficial bacteria, rhizobia, that fix nitrogen in the soil — this is called a mutualistic relationship — and are therefore a useful companion plant, especially useful to grow intercropped with green, leafy vegetables that benefit from high nitrogen content in their soil.

• The green shoots can also be cut and served as a vegetable as is done in Chinese cooking, especially stir-fried with garlic or shellfish such as crab.