In the early eighties, there was a revolution in small green vegetables. Suddenly, the humble garden pea (mushy or otherwise) wasn't good enough. True class in the urban home of the decade that taste forgot could only be exhibited via the medium of the petit pois, preferably   frozen, accompanying everything from pasta to pizza (both also defined as classy foods at the time). Ah, petit pois. French for "you mug, you've just bought a small unripe vegetable, or, more accurately, four-hundred of the hard little fuckers." But the mere fact that they had a french name made them classy, like blancmange, filou pastry and mange tout. Ah, petit pois. Always tiny, uniformly smooth and round and ... utterly tasteless. MP

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