History lesson: After the fall of Rome, the technology of bread-baking was forgotten in Europe until crusaders brought it back from the Middle East. For the intervening centuries, the main staple of European peasants was boiled grain or legumes, hence Goldilocks’ preoccupation with porridge. “Pease” was the original word in English for what we now call a (lone, singular) “pea”, but because it sounded plural, “pease” morphed into “pea” with a new plural “peas”. (The word “cherry” has a similar history.) The medieval peasant hovel would typically have a pot of porridge simmering for days at a time; no telling what pease porridge must have been like after nine days.
History lesson: After the fall of Rome, the technology of bread-baking was forgotten in Europe until crusaders brought it back from the Middle East. For the intervening centuries, the main staple of European peasants was boiled grain or legumes, hence Goldilocks’ preoccupation with porridge. “Pease” was the original word in English for what we now call a (lone, singular) “pea”, but because it sounded plural, “pease” morphed into “pea” with a new plural “peas”. (The word “cherry” has a similar history.) The medieval peasant hovel would typically have a pot of porridge simmering for days at a time; no telling what pease porridge must have been like after nine days.