I’ve always loved peas. Those frozen peas available in grocery stores aren’t terrible.

But they can’t begin to compare with new baby peas, tiny marbles of sweetness that are called English peas or Petit Pois (probably, respectively, by the English and French) that have just been harvested, untouched by machinery or processing that — however slightly — changes their taste. They are one of the glories of spring.

Growing up on a produce farm, when peas were in season, I ate them every day. And I helped pick, shell and bag bushels of them for the freezer.

The peas appeared on our nightly dinner table, dressed always with a bit of browned butter (beurre noisette, a.k.a. nutty butter) into which the peas’ cooking liquid was poured. Then the mixture was reduced just until it had become a glaze or light sauce.

That was my grandmother’s standard treatment of many, if not most, of the vegetables that came into her kitchen, from peas and new potatoes in the spring, to corn and lima beans later in the season. It was one of the things that made her cooking a cut above the norms of the day. Browning caramelized the residual milk solids in the butter, which adds a wonderful depth of flavor — even if only a small amount is used; it’s a wonderful way to get an “extra mile’s” worth of taste from a bit of fat. Good as those barely cooked peas in brown butter were, however, what I loved best — and still love best — is eating them raw.

Sitting around the kitchen table with a mountain of pea pods in the center, shelling them into metal pie tins, I’d gobble the peas by the handful, not infrequently getting into trouble for doing so. To me they were far more addictive than potato chips or fries.

Then there were the pods, which I loved at least as much as the peas themselves. Edible snow or snap pea pods were unheard of in central Illinois in those days, except as an unfamiliar ingredient in Chinese restaurants. Standing up to straighten my back after unending bending and picking over the pea plants, I’d open a couple of pods, eat the peas, snap off the stems and strings, and chew the pods until the flavor was gone and there was just a “cud” of fibers; then I’d spit them out, and start the whole process over again. It was better than any chewing gum I ever had. These days, of course, snow peas and sugar snap peas can be found in groceries year-round. But there are more edible pea parts that are coming into popular use. They are the pea tendrils — also known as pea shoots, or vines, or leaves. Used for centuries in Chinese cuisine, they have begun “crossing the culinary line,” according to Elizabeth Schneider, author of Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini.

Though they’ve been found almost exclusively in Asian markets here in the U.S. for decades, Schneider notes that “There’s nothing new under the sun: John Evelyn recommended ‘The Pod of the Sugarpease, when first beginning to appear, with the Husk and Tendrils’” in 1699 for use in a salad.

Another newcomer to these shores are pea sprouts, “the very first stem-andleaf pairs the pea seed forms,” which similarly used to be found only in Asian markets.

The shoots/tendrils are the leafy tips of young sugar/snow peas or regular peas. They are especially attractive with their twining, curling tendrils. The sprouts have all the crunchiness of other sprouts. Both the shoots and tendrils have that delicious raw pea taste. I look for them every spring.