Spring’s many forms of peas -- with 14 recipes

Spring is almost unthinkable without fresh peas. Unfortunately, the state of most English peas might make you wish summer would get here faster. The good news is that you have alternatives. If you can’t find sweet green peas, there are always sugar snaps, and, in a pinch, pea shoots that will deliver that sweet green flavor in a more reliable package.

Sugar snaps are the kings of the edible-pod peas, a class that also includes the flat snow peas. Sugar snaps are sweeter, crunchier and have more pea flavor. They’re so good you might think they must be an old variety, but in fact, they stem from some crosses made in the 1970s by a plant breeder named Calvin Lamborn.

PHOTOS: 14 recipes for pea salads, soups and stews

And when you do find great English peas, you’ve got to try this. It’s my favorite way to eat them, learned from my old friend, cookbook writer Sylvia Thompson: Simmer the peas in their pods in a skillet with about 1 inch of water and a nice chunk of butter. Cook them just until the pods glow and begin to soften, about three minutes. Drain, sprinkle generously with coarse salt and then eat them by popping the whole pod in your mouth and pulling it out between your teeth. You get a scraping of slightly bitter green from the pod and then the explosion of sweet green flavor from the peas themselves.

Do this only with close friends: You’ll wind up with mouths smeared with butter and mounds of discarded pea hulls.

PHOTOS: 14 recipes for pea salads, soups and stews

How to choose: Look for pods that are firm and crisp. They shouldn’t bend at all but should snap. The color in general should be a saturated pale green. Some peas will show a little white scarring on the pod; that’s not a problem.

How to store: English peas should be eaten almost as soon as you’ve bought them. The sugar begins turning to starch as soon as they’re picked, even at cool temperatures. Sugar snaps hold their sweetness better, so you can refrigerate them in a tightly sealed plastic bag. They’ll last four or five days.

How to prepare: English peas, of course, need to be shucked. Sugar snaps don’t, but many varieties have a tough fibrous string that runs the length of the pea that should be removed before cooking. Fold back the stem and pull -- the string will unzip quite easily. Check carefully; some varieties have strings on both sides (just repeat the stem operation from the opposite end). Cook all peas, but especially sugar snaps, very briefly to preserve their flavor and crunch.

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