Waiting for Cloud-Grown Golden Peas | Yi Guo Shitai’s Little Table

I’ve loved peas since I was a child. Every year when they come into season, I’d need to eat them for several meals in a row to satisfy my craving. When I heard that my good friend Jinzi had grown them on her farm high up on the Little Golden Mountain in Aba using natural farming methods, I couldn’t wait to buy some from her. I even gave her crop a name: “golden peas” – heritage yellow peas she cultivates on the mountainsides of Xiaojin County in Aba Prefecture. Unfortunately, I missed out for the past few years.

The “golden peas” only hit the market between late July and early August, with a shipping window of just about two weeks, right in the middle of the school holidays. During this time, I’m usually either chaperoning my son Lemao’s summer activities or running community workshops for holidaying students. Alternatively, I’d hear about them too late, or my order wouldn’t meet Jinzi’s minimum dispatch threshold. One way or another, this taste of “midsummer sweetness” slipped past me year after year.

This summer, my schedule settled into a steadier rhythm. On top of that, two of my dining companions, A-Xia and Yue-Liang, started messaging in our group chat, complaining that they “could no longer stomach takeaways”. So I decided to bring our shared meal table back a bit earlier than planned.

Ten-year-old Lemao was more than happy to see the table back in action. He’s spending the summer holidays in Chengdu, and on ordinary days we divide up the housework, taking turns in the kitchen (he’s spent his last two school breaks here with me, learning the ropes, and can now cook simple dishes independently). With the shared meals running again, he could take it a bit easier. He’d just step in as a summer “taste tester” for “One-Pot’s Little Dining Table”, freeing himself from the daily cooking rota. His duties would be limited to clearing the table and washing up afterwards, at most.

With the table full, I went ahead and placed a confident order with Jinzi for 1.5 kg (3 jin) of peas. After eagerly hitting submit, I spotted the shop’s special note: “If the harvest falls short, we won’t dispatch and will issue a full refund.” So Jinzi couldn’t even guarantee supply?! I groaned internally, praying that the fields would yield enough, while bracing myself for the possibility of having to wait another year.

Then, on Friday, just as I was about to head out, a beautifully packaged parcel arrived. Running my fingers over the plump pods, I could almost smell the high-altitude winds and sunshine from above 3,000 metres. My mouth started watering instantly, and I desperately wanted to shuck them and get cooking right away. But I had a swimming lesson booked for that day, so I had to dash out, rushing only to stash the pods in the fridge.

The next day, while Lemao did his homework, I patiently shucked the 1.5 kg of peas. Listening to music, I watched the round little beans tumble into a container, slowly filling it to the brim. A quiet joy settled in my chest as I mentally planned the menu: pea and rice, stir-fried peas with minced pork, peas layered under steamed pork in rice flour…

Once shucked, I took a handful while they were still fresh and layered them under the chicken chops that Lemao loves, then put them on to steam. I set aside a small portion in a bowl for the pea and rice course later, and packed the rest into containers for the freezer. They’d be ready to cook and share with everyone when the shared meal table runs again on Monday.

I told Lemao that these peas had been grown by Jinzi in the mountains of Aba Prefecture. For a moment, he struggled to remember who Jinzi was. It had been several years since she last stayed at his home to conduct a “thick-soil” cultivation experiment, and they had not met in all that time. Yet Lemao knew precisely why Jinzi’s peas tasted so exceptional—not only because of their ecological farming methods, but also because “that region gets plenty of sunlight and experiences a marked temperature difference between day and night.”

II. Heritage Peas Grown Above the Clouds

Like many fellow ecological growers, Jinzi started by amending the soil, purchasing wheat straw and alfalfa to spread across the fields. While the soil was building up, she simultaneously renovated her rented cottage to better suit her personal requirements. She installed a rocket-heated kang, for example, and upgraded the traditional dry toilet into a urine-diverting “fertiliser bank”.

During the busy seasons, she works the land with focused urgency; in the quieter months, she knits jumpers and wanders through the village. She calls herself “a farmer who embraces a fallow period”. Through her landlady, she made friends with the locals, took time to learn about the regional landscape and customs, and gradually won the villagers’ trust and assistance. Slowly, Jinzi settled into the life she had always imagined in that village above the clouds: kept company by two cats, tending a flock of chickens, and growing a variety of vegetables, fruits, and herbs—rising with the sun and resting with it.

As the farm began to take shape, Jinzi set herself a modest target: to see it break even within five years. To make this happen, she knew she had to do more than cultivate the land; she had to run a business.To turn her harvest into marketable produce, she had to plan picking times, packaging, and delivery, whilst also adapting the following year’s planting schedule based on customer feedback.

Her decision to focus sales on peas and tomatoes stems not only from her own love of eating them, but also from their practicality for parcel delivery, making it easier to share them with supporters, including ourselves.

Just as seeds instinctively seek the right soil to take root and sprout, farmers seek out the right varieties to expand their cultivation.For Jinzi, in Xiao “Jin” County, to encounter these “golden” peas—introducing this heritage garden pea, abundantly grown across the Ngawa Prefecture since the People’s Commune era, to city dwellers—feels utterly destined.

1.5 kg of peas in their pods didn’t yield much once shelled. I spread a handful at the bottom of the plate to line the steamed chicken cutlets, tossed another handful into the pot while the rice was cooking, and stir-fried the rest with minced meat in a large pan. Lemo, two dining companions, and I divided it up. Then, when it came time to steam the chicken cutlets again before another swim, Lemo asked, “Are there any peas left?”

Those who know their food are the true discerning ones!

He craved the peas not only because they were delicious, but because he knew that what our ecological farming friends grow is “the right food”—the kind where, if you miss it, you wait an entire year. When the chance comes along, you simply have to make the most of it. As he noted after reading *The Life-Saving Diet* cover to cover this summer: “The body’s mechanisms will naturally draw nutrients from the right plant-based foods; we need not fret over what to eat. It is a carefree approach to eating. Simply give the body the right food, and the body will do the right thing.”

I told him that the next chance to eat golden peas wouldn’t come until next year. This young “Junjie” looked slightly disappointed, but simply murmured an “oh” and accepted the reality—as someone who plants peas every winter in Lemao’s vegetable patch in Mingyue Village, he knows that growing peas takes time, and eating them requires waiting for the right moment.

Such calmness, and this easy-going nature possessed at such a young age, makes him a delight to be around. It also leads me to wonder: how much of one’s character is innate, and how much is cultivated over time?

These past few years, the farming companions around me, ourselves included, have followed the natural seasons and rhythms, working the land and living accordingly. Those crops that must ripen in their own time and arrive without interruption provide the nourishment Lemao’s body requires. They have also nurtured his rich, sensitive palate and his grasp of the wider world, shaping him into someone accustomed to waiting and content with it: if everything has its season, why rush?

We owe a debt of gratitude to this school of nature. It does more than help adults restore their vitality and a sense of innocence; it gifts the younger generation with optimism, open-mindedness, and patience.

IV. Bonus: Summer and Winter Pea Rice Recipes

To conclude, let’s look at how to prepare pea rice.

Jinzi’s peas come into season in midsummer, and this year marked my first time enjoying a pot of tender pea rice in the heat.

The summer version is wonderfully straightforward. After washing the rice, simply add a handful of tender peas and a small handful of millet to the pot to cook into a “bean rice”. It offers a refreshing bite on sweltering days and serves as a nourishing meal when the appetite is sluggish. This “bean rice” is effortlessly simple and perfectly suited to summer. Once the rice is cooked, quickly blanch some sweet potato leaves or water spinach, pour over a light soy and sesame oil dressing, and it’s ready to eat.

For the winter version, you can follow the recipe for cured pork, pea, and glutinous rice, a seasonal staple in farmhouses and small eateries across the Sichuan basin throughout the colder months. Wash a suitable portion of glutinous rice, dice some streaky preserved pork, then add a bowl of dried pea seeds (the “zi” here denotes peas dried and saved for sowing). Wash the peas, add everything to a rice cooker, and press the start button.

If you’ve never tried this dish, picture it as a zongzi (sticky rice dumpling) without the bamboo leaf wrapper. In the winter kitchen at the small dining table, it’s even more effortless: you needn’t bother with blanching vegetables. Simply serve it with a few slices of spicy pickled cabbage. It’s wonderfully appetising, cuts through the richness, and aids digestion.

In Jonathan Silvertown’s Seeds, he writes: “The technology of cooking seeds is a great movement, cunningly diverting the gifts plants leave for their descendants to other ends.”

Before reading Seeds, I was much like many others: I had grown up eating pea rice, possessed an inexplicable fondness for various bean rices, and found those enriched with coarse grains and pumpkin particularly comforting. Yet I never paused to ask why. The secret, it turns out, lies in a profound discovery made by our human ancestors: grains and legumes are nutritional complements, providing the amino acids each lacks. Together they create a balanced diet, ensuring that even those who rarely eat meat or cannot afford it can still thrive.

Thanks be to our cunning human ancestors for bringing seeds to the table, thus beginning the shared journey of co-evolution between people and plants.

Foodthink Author

Xia Lili

Real name Hou Xinqu, she is a writer with a deep love for nature and children. A keen cook, she is passionate about the relationship between people and food. She previously founded the Xiaji Bookhouse (Dujiangyan) and the Lemao’s Hometown Nature School (Mingyue Village, Pujiang). She is currently conducting research and teaching practice in Yulin, Chengdu, focused on “community building and nature education within urban regeneration”.

 

 

Images: Provided by the author unless otherwise noted

Editor: Xu Youyou