About Peasepudding

A New Zealand Food Blog written by a Northern English Lass!

Why Peasepudding (also know as pease porridge)? Particularly since my passion is for desserts not peas!

Pease pudding is a nursery rhyme I remember from my childhood in Northern England. I had a big Mother Goose rhyme book and this was one of my favourites, even though I hated peas as a child! When I was looking for a Blog name I wanted not only something to do with food but also a link to my heritage which was unique to food Blogs, hence peasepudding.

The origins of this rhyme are unknown. The name refers to a type of porridge made from peas, pease pudding, also known as pease pottage (in Middle English. (“Pease” was treated as a mass noun, similar to “oatmeal” and from that we get the singular pea and plural peas.) One theory is that the rhyme is a doggerel by partisans of Princess Mary (Queen Mary I of England), celebrating the downfall, and disparaging the pretentions of Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Days Queen”, indicating that she was less than royal–pease pottage being a staple of lower class commoners.

An early version of Pease Porridge Hot is a riddle found in John Newbery‘s Mother Goose’s Melody (c. 1760). See Mother Goose’s Melody 41:

The lyrics to the rhyme are:

 

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

I now live on the other side of the globe in a small piece of paradise called Muriwai on the North Island of  New Zealand. Although I studied to be a chef after leaving school and spend many years in the industry my profession has changed in my latter years which has taken me away from hospitality. The passion is still there though and I live this through my Blog and some day I will come full circle and will be involved once again in the food industry.

When I’m not blogging or working, or perhaps that should be the other way around, I like to spend as much time in the ocean when conditions permit doing one of my new found passions, surfing. It keeps me fit, gives a great adrenalin rush and burns off al those dessert calories!