I fell in love with purple peas two years ago at Monticello, where the pea was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite vegetable. He had his slaves plant every variety he could get his hands on.

I didn’t taste the purple peas; I only saw them growing in Monticello’s restored garden. With their lovely pink-and-violet blossoms and deep-purple pods, they were the Blue-Podded Capucijner, said to have been grown by Franciscan Capuchin monks as early as the sixteenth century and now for sale in the Monticello gift shop. The Capucijner is recommended for drying for soup, but it is sometimes picked young and eaten as an edible-podded snow pea. I didn’t know that at the time, or care. I just loved the plant for its looks.
In Monticello’s shop I reluctantly bypassed the Capucijner seeds, because in my little garden I can spare only four feet of row for peas, and I usually devote all of that space to Cascadia snap peas. But after Slow Food USA paired seeds from the Ark of Taste with new varieties from the young company Row 7 in Slow Food’s Plant a Seed Campaign last year, a packet of Beauregarde snow pea seeds was passed around the table at a Slow Food Corvallis board meeting. With one look at the watercolor image of purple pods on the packet, I dropped the packet in my bag.

Last February I planted some Beauregarde seeds alongside my Cascadias, and soon I was rewarded with pink-and-purple blooms like the ones I’d seen at Monticello. Deep-purple pods followed, bending as the peas inside began to swell. I had to search for the packet to remind me what sort of peas I was growing. At this point, some of the peas—green in their purple pods—were nearly big enough for eating shelled. But Beauregarde was supposed to be a snow pea. So I started picking.
Beauregarde was bred by Michael Mazourek, an associate professor at Cornell, where he breeds vegetables to resist insects and diseases on Northeastern farms. Row 7 Seeds is his collaborative venture with Dan Barber, chef and restaurant co-owner at the nonprofit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, also in New York, and seedsman Matthew Goldfarb. The men’s shared goal is to breed vegetables for taste as well as suitability for organic farming, to produce the seeds organically, and to sell them widely. On the Row 7 website, they list all their collaborators, chefs around the United States who test the vegetables in their kitchens and farmers across the country who produce the seeds.
Michael Mazourek named Beauregarde for Violet Beauregarde, a character in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As you may remember, rude, arrogant Violet chews an experimental gum that makes her swell up and turn blue, like a giant blueberry. The Oompa-Loompa factory workers squeeze the juice out of her, but the indigo color remains. And that’s what most special about the Beauregarde pea pods: However you cook them, the deep-purple color remains.
The purple color comes, of course, from anthocyanins, which may or may not enhance human health by fighting infections, inflammation, cancer, and diabetes, by preventing dementia, and by improving vision. Unfortunately, none of these benefits has been proven. What we know anthocyanins do is improve plants’ defenses–against disease, drought, predation, and other stresses. Perhaps because of anthocyanins, Beauregarde resists fusarium wilt, although the plant is susceptible to powdery mildew late in the season.

stains remain.
Humans appreciate anthocyanin pigments for their appearance, in the garden and on the plate, and for the extra, vaguely spicy flavor they lend to, say, Black Krim tomatoes or Purple Haze carrots. But there is one annoying thing about most red and purple vegetables: Their pigments tend to leak out. I’ve written about this effect in pickled Swiss chard stems, and I’ve experienced it also with purple peppers. Michael Mazourek knows the trick of keeping the purple in the peas.
I didn’t research Beauregarde peas before cooking them, so their color retention amazed me. Cooking the peas brought other surprises as well. First, they are not sweet. My snap peas are sweet enough to eat as dessert. Shelled peas are sweet, too, if picked at the right stage. Green snow pea pods develop sweetness as the peas develop, although as they reach maturity the sugar turns to starch. Row 7 advises letting Beauregarde pods swell until the peas are halfway to shelling size. This is what I do when I grow green snow peas, but I must disagree with this recommendation for Beauregardes. Swollen Beauregarde pods look deformed, they are tough, and they need stringing. And their flavor is not improved over the flat pods.
The second big surprise, for me, was the long cooking Beauregarde peas seem to require. I haven’t timed the cooking exactly, but at least ten minutes are needed to render even flat Beauregarde pods tolerably tender.
The third surprise was that Beauregarde peas taste bland. Their anthocyanins don’t seem to give them that extra je ne sais quoi. I can best describe their flavor as neutral vegetable.

But still these pea pods can be delicious. I love them sautéed in olive oil with plenty of garlic and then braised with a little water liquid until they are tender. The tender but chewy texture, the taste of garlic throughout, and the prodigious purpleness combine to make me devour a dishful of Beauregardes, and reach for more.
I would love to hear about your experiences with these and other purple peas, such as Sugar Magnolia, Royal Snow, and Royal Snap II.
I’ve nowadays got a very! small patch and have grown purple peas for several years. I must admit tho, I grow them amongst the roses and they look fascinating throughout the winter/early spring with their coloured pods against the bricks of the house! To me they are peas and a very welcome addition to my dinner – I haven’t thought about which variety I have – I simply enjoy growing and eating them!
Tess, if you happen to find out what variety you’re growing, please let us know, because so far you are the only one commenting who likes the taste of her purple peas.
Fascinating article!
I had the same experience with “King Tut” purple peas purchased from Baker Creek. They were beautiful – the blooms as well as the peas, but they were stringy and tough. I was picking them as snow or sugar snap peas because that’s what I thought I planted. I pulled the beautiful plants out and composted them. Very sad.
Hi Linda
I did not grow them, but I bought a few pints from a farm that grew them (along with regular sugar snaps). My reaction in the kitchen is very similar to yours: first, WOW, the remained purple. What a bonus when plating. And then… disappointment that they did not taste like peas. Mixing them up with tasty green sugar snaps help to make a pretty plate with taste.. but yeah, the lACK OF TASTE IS A LET DOWN.
I think that I grew Sugar Magnolia from Renee’s Garden Seeds the year before last. They weren’t sweet like the sugar snaps that I normally grow. I wound up not picking them because I was having a good pea year (not always guaranteed in SoCal) and the green ones were tastier.
The consensus seems to be that purple peas just aren’t very tasty. What a pity!
I’ve grown Purple Mist for many years. They are vigorous growers and I find them really good as long as you don’t let the pods get too big. Last year I tried Beauregarde and was disappointed for all the same reasons as you so I will be going back to Purple Mist.
Thanks, Kim! I’ll have to look for Purple Mist.
I’m a pea breeder and am even close to my own tasty red podded pea. (Hopefully this year)
But as for purple peas I have one that is good. It is called ‘Midnight Snow’ and was originally bred by Dan Quickert in California. I have been the only one saving it. I just sent seeds to baker creek so they may offer them in the future?
Contact me and I’ll send you some to try and share (if you find them tasty).
Hello Andrew,
I’m Dan Quickert’s sister. I’m so happy to hear that you are growing and saving the seeds of Dan’s Midnight Snow pea!
I have grown King Tut and Purple Podded Snow (from Blauwschokkers genetics.)
The King Tut seemed a bit heat tolerant, and outgrew my supports! 6ft and taller lol. I agree, they get stringy but if you catch them quite early they are good for fresh eating. Chocolate notes in some of those! We saved most of the seed and didn’t experiment with it as a soup pea…only when it was fresh.
The Blauwschokker types were good for longer as far as fresh eating. Not as stringy!
Thanks for the report, Amanda! I hadn’t heard to Blauwschokker peas, but I just found this article about them.
How tall do this grow? I ordered them from Row 7. They say “trellis”but they do not say 3’ or 6’. I’d like to know what to expect.
I have already planted some King Tut. My husband is the cook; I’ll have to tell him to cook them with garlic. He’ll like that!
Maybe four feet? No taller than that, if I remember right.
could you recommend where I can find and buy Thai magenta noodles? I searched but no results… Thanks in advance!
That’s a good question Filitsa. I’d like more of them myself! We don’t have Asian markets in our county, so my husband and I buy Asian food when we travel (or, more often, we travel to buy Asian food). When we’re in Portland we usually go to Fubonn, but the last time we were there I didn’t see these noodles. We may have found them in Seattle, not in the International District but possibly in a store called Asian Food Center. The store seemed strange in some ways, but it had a LOT of kinds of noodles.
Found your comments to be very accurate. Will still grow a few for the flower and pod colour in the garden, but not for the flavour. Yakumo Giants are the best.
Southern Hemisphere.
Thanks, Jay. Everyone, Yakumo Giant is a snow pea with green pods and purple flowers. I’ve found one U.S. source: Sand Hill Preservation Center.
Awesome post. Thanks for sharing