CARLIN PEAS...do you remember them from your childhood? Well, my mission is to make them popular once more....a taste of history for the modern age.

Firstly, I should introduce myself.....My name is Ken Bentley of Ken Bentley Speciality Delicatessen Foods, of Driffield, East Yorkshire..

And you may be interested to know that I am one of the few traders in the north of England still cooking and serving delicious Carlin Peas.

Carlin Peas - also known as Maple Peas, Brown Peas, Pigeon Peas and even Black badgers and Grey Badgers -are an ancient pea or marl, recorded in the reign of Elizabeth 1.

They almost certainly originated in the gardens of the early Middle Ages monasteries, when peas and beans formed a huge part of the staple diet. They grow to about six feet high, and boast attractive purple and white blossom, and they crop prolifically. The peas, which can be used fresh, or dried for winter use, have a distinctive flavour, often described as a mediaeval mushy pea.
Carlin peas are better known in the north of England. In the Northeast traditionally children were given them to eat on Carlin Sunday, after a special church service, a little like Harvest Festival. In Nottingham the cooked peas were sold at the annual Goose Fair until the late fifties.