You hear the screams of “It’s Pea’n Time” and you think it must be some sort of brash end-of-the-semester prank being played out on the side of the social sciences building by the pledge brothers of Zeta Tau Zeta. The sound of that screeching call to arms is somewhat like the guttural snorts and squeals of a hog-calling contest at the local country fair. But when it comes to “Pea’n Time,” we’re not going to see a 1,200 pound Hampshire Boar come racing from behind the barn.

No, in late spring in Eastern Washington, we’re calling for the start of the harvest of the largest cash crop in Whitman County -- fresh green peas.

Every spring for well over a hundred years, the call for “Pea’n Time” has been serious business to the farm families of Walla Walla, Washington. Walla Walla, population 26,478, is the seat of government in Whitman County and is located in the Southeast portion of the state, not far from the Oregon line.

In 1818, Fort Walla Walla was established as an outpost for fur traders. Its unusual name of doubling one word comes from the Sahaptin Indian language and means "a place of many waters.” In this case, the confluence of the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek, and the bounding waters of the mighty Columbia River nearby.

In 1836, a few miles from the current city of Walla Walla, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established a medical mission and a school to serve the Cayuse Indians. After the Whitmans were killed following a nasty misunderstanding with the Indians in 1847, the Reverend Cushing Eells resolved to establish a school in the Whitmans’ honor.

The Washington Territorial Legislature granted a charter to the school, Whitman Seminary, on December 20, 1859. In 1883, the seminary was changed into a four-year college -- what we know today as Whitman College.

Walla Walla was incorporated in 1862 and fast became a center of agricultural and lumber trade. In the ensuing decades, pioneers would come West on the Oregon Trail and stake homesteads on the rich alluvial soils of the area. And while the timber industry of the Northwest is today a mere fraction of its former self, farming of fruits and vegetables is still a major source of revenue in Walla Walla.

Walla Walla is now the home to vineyards of Merlot and Chardonnay grapes, organic farms growing white asparagus, Yukon Gold and Purple Peruvian potatoes, but it is the simple green pea that has reigned supreme for generations.

It was my mother who first told me about “Pea’n Time.”

Back in the spring of 1943, my mother was first exposed to the ring of the “Pea’n Time” bell while she was a freshman studying “social sciences” at Whitman College. Back then, most girls from ‘proper’ families attended college and majored in either education or home economics. Become a teacher and get married was the general order of things for women in the 1940’s.

For women who didn’t know what vocation they wanted to pursue, “social sciences” was the major of choice. A young lady would be given all the basic tools of learning -- mathematics, economics, sociology and Latin -- all the subjects one would need in order to pursue the other career path of the day for women: to be a secretary.

While I am sure my mother had eaten many green peas in her youth, I imagine they were of the canned variety. It wasn’t until her days dining on campus at Prentiss Hall at Whitman that she tasted fresh green peas that had been picked just steps away in the green fields blanketing Walla Walla.

Washington knows it “beans” so to speak, and peas are just one member of the bean or “legume” family. The state produces 21% of the nation’s total amount of fresh peas; second only to Minnesota. And Washington is number one in the country when it comes to production of two other members of the legume family: dried peas and lentils.

Two types of fresh peas are generally grown around Walla Walla; smooth-seeded and wrinkled, with different varieties of each adapted to specific growing regions.

Determining the growing cycle of fresh peas is tricky business because peas mature rapidly, especially when hot weather arrives. Peas must be picked at the precise moment when the starch and sugar content of the pea is at its peak. A pea too early is tough and bitter. A pea picked too late is rubbery and bitter.

For that reason, farmers stagger the planting of fresh peas from early March all the way through mid-June, with harvesting starting the first week in June and continuing through the blazing days of August.

Both farmers and processors profit from the ease with which the pea moves from field to supermarket produce case.

Peas are harvested mechanically by huge ‘combines’ that scoop up a wide swath of plants, spit out the vines and leaves and sort out the peas. The vines and leaves are chopped and sprayed back out on the fields in huge water cannons. Pea waste as compost as it were.

With today’s modern technology and computer-aided canning plants, the ancient method of ‘sorting’ peas by hand has been virtually eliminated.

Peas are adaptable to virtually any method of processing -- everything from canned, pickled, dried, freeze-dried and just plain fresh. Yet peas take so well to freezing that nearly 95% of all peas harvested are sold frozen.

Frozen peas have also found their way into the world of modern medicine. Spend a weekend weeding your vegetable garden and you may end up with a terribly sore back. A one pound bag of frozen petite peas costing $1.98 will do wonders for discs of the lumbar spine. Just place that bag of peas on those inflamed, tight muscles and your pain will melt away in 30 minutes.

Finally, when it comes to the world of culinaria, few vegetables feature in so many recipes.

And let’s face it, everybody likes peas, whether it is the lawyer at lunch enjoying a mound of buttered peas with his bangers and mash or a cooing baby slurping a spoonful of pureed Gerber peas. The little green globes transcend all ages and tastes.

In terms of cooking technique, fresh peas happen to be about the easiest vegetable to prepare. In fact, any fresh vegetable, picked in season at the peak of ripeness, is quite easy to cook. Why? Because our friend Mother Nature has done all the prep work on these little green emeralds before they ever find their way into the market.

Peas don’t need to be peeled, cored or seeded. They are ready to be used just as they are, in all of their natural glory.

The biggest fresh pea is the English Shell Pea. English peas have fat little pods in which the round peas reside. They are sweet peas, yet have a woodsy, herbal note.

Pea and scallop mouse with caviar and champagne buerre blanc is fine on the tasting menu of a haute cuisine, fussy French place. But at my table, I prefer to use fresh peas in simple, uncomplicated recipes like Braised Chicken Thighs with Fresh Peas and Pappardelle.

I know, you skip by the packages of chicken thighs and go straight for the expensive yet “low-fat” boneless, skinless chicken breasts that cost $4.99 per pound. You may discount that age-old perception that chicken thighs are tough. That dark meat and bone pack a wallop of poultry flavor, and you just need to find the right recipe so that the meat stays tender and juicy.

Slow braising in a flavored stock is the best method for cooking and tenderizing chicken thighs. Save the braising liquid and use it to sauce the chicken thighs or an accompanying dish of pasta.

We normally associate pea soup with dried (split) peas and ham hocks. Just try making pea soup with fresh peas and herbs once and you will have a re-awakening of what a pea really tastes like -- a bowl of vibrant green, steaming with the heady aroma of earthy peas, peppery oregano and just a whiff of black licorice from fresh marjoram.

In the late 1970’s, the salad bar became all the rage in mid-range family restaurants. The salad bar presented the diner with a plethora of ingredients from which you could build a gut-busting salad. And what would a salad bar be without the omnipresent crock of peas on ice? Alongside the peas one could always find sliced olives, red onions, green peppers, hard-boiled eggs, saltine crackers, hard-as-a-rock croutons, pickled beets, and for the diet-conscious, dry-roasted sunflower seeds. All for the tidy sum of an additional $2.95 to accompany your “loaded baked potato and 9oz. sirloin steak.”

I always avoided those salad bars. Especially the peas. I suspected the peas weren’t really fresh. They probably had been pulled out of the freezer and poured into that salad bar crock. Then the crock of peas was hauled back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room each day -- same peas in the bottom of that same dirty crock.

My cousin Vinnie has a way with peas when it comes to putting them in salads that puts any corporate restaurant salad bar to shame.

Vinnie isn’t really my cousin. She was married to my Mother’s first cousin John Piper. After John and Vinnie divorced, Mother kept in close contact with Vinnie. We found it much easier to introduce Vinnie at family picnics and barbecues as “our cousin” rather than ramble through the “she was married to my first cousin and we liked her better anyway” spiel.

I was especially fond of going to Vinnie’s house for a buffet because I knew she would always have some sort of pea salad. It might be a layered pea salad with smoked cheddar cheese, water chestnuts, bacon and creamy mayonnaise dressing. Or it might be a simple salad of cold rice and peas. Whatever version of pea salad Vinnie made, it would be the perfect side dish to her huge baked ham studded with cloves and a casserole of hot, bubbling, candied yams with marshmallows on top.