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Pigeon Peas are referred to as a pea, but they are really a bean.
They grow on woody vines up to 6 feet (2 metres) tall that are perennial in the tropics. It flowers with purple and white blossoms, and then produces abundant long, twisty pods covered in fuzz.
The beans inside are about 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) in size, round, and beige with light-brown speckles. The speckles fade when the bean is cooked.
They can be eaten fresh, if they are harvested early to use as a fresh green pea.
Or, they can be let fully mature, then be dried as a field pea. From seed to dried pea harvest takes about 9 months.
Dried Pigeon Peas have a mealy texture when cooked, and a sweet but strong, pungent flavour.
Depending on your locale, they are available fresh, frozen, and canned, but most often dried. They are also sold powdered.
They are popular in the southern US and in the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, they are often used in rice dishes.
Pigeon Peas were popular in the North-East of England, but have mostly disappeared there now, and in fact are hard to find as an ingredient for the home cook anywhere in the UK. For a while, Pigeon Peas migrated from grocery stores into pet shops in the UK, presumably as bird food.
Cooking Tips
Unsoaked, cook until tender, anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes.
Pressure cooking: 10 minutes.
Recommendations vary as to whether to soak or not in advance of cooking. Recommendations coming from north-eastern English cooking traditions say soak overnight. Others, particularly in the context of American and Caribbean food writing, say either that no soaking is needed, or even go so far as to say "soaking not recommended."
Substitutes
Yellow-eyed peas, black-eyed peas, whole or split yellow or green dried peas. Whole dried peas would be preferred in a rice dish.
Equivalents
1 cup dried = 3 cups, cooked
History
Pigeon Peas are an old-world legume, native to Africa. They were used by the Ancient Egyptians.
They were grown in England in the Middle Ages. In England, they were called "Carlings" or "Carlin Peas" because they were most significantly used on Carling Sunday.
They were known in the north of England more than the south, and were commercially grown in the north-east of England up until sometime into the 1900s.
Pigeon Peas used to be sold at fairs in England in cups with a splash of vinegar on them. They were sold this way as "Black Peas" at the fair at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in the south-east of England in the last half of the 1900s. Shops in Bury St Edmunds will also still sell them in the lead-up to Guy Fawkes Day. They are also sold as "Black Peas" from fast-food vans in Rawtenstall, Lancashire (current as of 2005) , and at the "Flag Market" (an indoor and outdoor market) in the town centre of Preston, Lancashire (current as of 2005).
They were sold boiled, seasoned with pepper, salt and vinegar, at Nottingham's annual Goose Fair until the late 1950s.
Also called:  Black Peas
Brown Peas
Caja Peas
Carlin Peas
Carlings
Congo Beans
Congo Peas
Gandules
Goongoo Peas
Gunga Peas
Gungo Peas
Maple Peas
No-Eyed Peas
Parched Peas
Red Gram
Steepy Peas
Toor Dal Pois à pigeon (French)
See Also
Carlings, Pigeon Peas
Other entries for Beans
Adzuki Beans, Anasazi Beans, Apache Beans, Appaloosa Beans, Aramis Beans, Aunt Emma's Beans, Baccicia Beans, Baked Beans, Bayo Beans (Louisiana), Black Beans, Black Nightfall Beans, Bleu du Lac St-Jean Beans, Broad Beans, Brown Rice Beans, Bush Beans, Canary Beans, Chana Dal, Chickashaw Beans, Chickpeas, Chinese Long Bean, Cow-Itch Beans, Cowpeas, Cranberry Beans, Crochu de Savoie Beans, Dainagon Beans, Dolico Veneto Beans, Dragon Tongue Beans, Dry Beans, European Soldier Beans, Falcon Rice Beans, Flageolet Beans, Flor de Junio Beans, Flor de Mayo Beans, Fortin Family Beans, Fradinho Beans, French Fillet Beans, Garboncito Beans, Garrofo Beans, Good Mother Stallard Beans, Great Northern Beans, Green Beans, Green Flageolet Beans, Green Rice Beans, Hopi Black Pinto Beans, Jackson Wonder Beans, Kahnawake Mohawk Beans, Kunde Beans, Lablab Beans, Lima Beans, Lupini Beans, Madeira Beans, Magpie Beans, Mexican Bayo Beans, Moth Beans, Mung Beans, Navy Beans, Nodak Beans, Pebble Beans, Peruano Beans, Pigeon Peas, Pink Beans, Pinto Beans, Pole Beans, Rattlesnake Beans, Red Ball Beans, Red Kidney Beans, Red Nightfall Beans, Refugee Beans, Rice Beans (Asian), Rice Beans, Rio Zappe Beans, Romano Beans, Runner Beans, Sangre de Toros Beans, Sator Beans, Seluga Beans, Shelling Beans, Soybeans, Tarahumara Canario Beans, Tepary Beans, Tiger's Eye Beans, Tolosana Beans, Toscanelli Beans, Trout Beans, Tweed Wonder Beans, Vallarta Beans, Wax Beans, Wild Goose Beans, Winged Beans, Witkiem Beans, Zolfino Pratomagno Beans
Other entries for Legumes
Lentils, Peas
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