The Squash is the young Pea, before the Peas are formed in it, and the Peascod is the ripe shell of the Pea before it is shelled.[202:1] The garden Pea (Pisum sativum) is the cultivated form of a plant found in the South of Europe, but very much altered by cultivation. It was probably not introduced into England as a garden vegetable long before Shakespeare's time. It is not mentioned in the old lists of plants before the sixteenth century, and Fuller tells us that in Queen Elizabeth's time they were brought from Holland, and were "fit dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear."
The beautiful ornamental Peas (Sweet Peas, Everlasting Peas, &c.) are of different family (Lathyrus, not Pisum), but very closely allied. There is a curious amount of folklore connected with Peas, and in every case the Peas and Peascods are connected with wooing the lasses. This explains Touchstone's speech (No. [6]). Brand gives several instances of this, from which one stanza from Browne's "Pastorals" may be quoted—
"The Peascod greene, oft with no little toyle,
He'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soile,
And rend it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her."
Book ii, song 3.
FOOTNOTES:
[202:1] The original meaning of Peascod is a bag of peas. Cod is bag as Matt. x. 10—"ne codd, ne hlaf, ne feo on heora gyrdlum—'not a bag, not a loaf, not (fee) money in their girdles.'"—Cockayne, Spoon and Sparrow, p. 518.