According to our scary friends in the frozen North, we have to thank the Norsemen for the humble pea. They first appeared as a sign of displeasure from the god Thor. He was somewhat miffed at the lack of attention he was receiving so he sent a squadron of dragons to block the wells of his feckless worshippers with peas being held in their talons. Inevitably some of the peas missed the target and fell on the ground, where they sprouted and developed into little pea plants. After the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth the Norsemen then decided to dedicate this new plant to Thor and would only eat it on his day, Thursday. The tale does not end there though, whenever Thor felt put out (which seemed fairly often) he would despatch little gangs of angry dwarves to pick all the peas from the vines.
The Chinese, however, in keeping with their claim to have invented just about everything assert their ownership of our little green friends through the story of the “Divine Farmer”. The story goes that Emperor Shen Nung, the Divine Farmer planted them all along the countryside whilst visiting his kingdoms. When not planting peas he also found time to invent the plough, the rake and on his day off, discovered tea..