Derald wrote:
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

Derald wrote:
Man, I'm tellin' ya: You ain't et peas 'til you've had zipper cream
crowders or those wonderful tiny brown conch peas or old timey white
acre crowder peas or....
snip

Until just a few months ago I didn't realize how many varieties
there are out there . Puzzles me that the only ones you see on the
grocery shelf are black eyes when there are so many much tastier
options . I'm hoping to find some others next year at the seed swap .
In my youth, spent in Florida's Tampa Bay area, grocery stores and
vegetable markets generally offered several varieties of fresh, in the
shell, cowpeas ("field peas" or simply "peas" in the South) as well
as of green beans but by the middle 1970's, my family was travelling
to a farmers' market in a nearby smaller town in order to buy "zipper
cream" crowder peas and "silver queen" white corn (maize).
Purely speculatively, I suspect that the mechanized monocropping
and distribution system that places only one variety of crisphead
lettuce, broccoli, yellow squash, grapes, etc. in most grocery stores
in the US limits the widescale distribution of cowpeas to those that
favor large scale mechanized harvesting and processing.
The following is _not_ an endorsement. In fact, one of the vendors
is on my "never again" list but it'll give you an idea of the variety
available to home gardeners:

http://www.rareseeds.com/store/veget...wpeas/?F_All=Y

http://www.southernexposure.com/vege...s-c-3_121.html

http://www.reimerseeds.com/cowpeas_474.aspx

My wife had to shake me out of my trance , the pool of saliva beneath my
chair was getting pretty big ... the only field pea I'd ever tried was
blackeyes , which to me taste much like mud ... I now know there's a wide
variety to try .

--
Snag