Pisum sativum 'var. macrocarpon'.

One of the great horticultural inventions of the 20th century, and a remarkable triumph of modern plant breeding. For millennia, gardeners had cultivated two very distinct kinds of pea: shelling peas (with round seeds, of which only the little peas inside are eaten), and snow peas with flat pods (the Asian snow peas, where the entire flattened pod is eaten along with the barely-formed seeds). In 1979, an American breeder named Calvin Lamborn, of the Gallatin Valley Seed Co. in Idaho, achieved an audacious cross between these two lines and obtained an entirely new third type: a pea with a meaty, plump, round pod that is harvested like a snow pea (pod included) but with fully developed seeds inside. He named it Sugar Snap, and the variety won the All-America Selections award that same year — one of the very rare varieties to have truly created a new vegetable category in the garden.

A vigorous climbing plant, 1.5 to 2 m tall, that absolutely requires a trellis or pea netting to spread vertically. Plump bright-green pods 6-8 cm long, crunchy and juicy, holding 7-9 small round, well-sweetened peas inside. Explosive sweetness when picked fresh — one of those vegetables you taste once straight from the garden and never forget. Eaten whole, pod included: snacked raw or with a dip as an appetizer (probably the best crudité in existence), briefly stir-fried in a wok with garlic and ginger Asian-style, blanched quickly then added to a warm salad with mint and feta cheese, or added at the end of cooking to a spring risotto for the touch of freshness and crunch. Quick cooking is essential — sugar snaps go bland and limp if overcooked. Tasting note: if the "string" along each side of the pod becomes too firm at full maturity, just remove it by pinching the stem end and pulling.

Grower's tip: The pea is a cool-season plant par excellence, and hates heat. Optimal Québec strategy: direct-sow as soon as the soil can be worked in spring (late April to mid-May), for a harvest in early July before the deep heat; then a second sowing in mid-August for a fall harvest (often particularly sweet under September's cool nights). Soaking the seeds 8-12 hours in warm water before sowing speeds germination. Inoculating the seeds with a symbiotic bacterium of the genus Rhizobium leguminosarum (sold in packets at seed shops) often doubles production: those bacteria are what let the pea fix its own atmospheric nitrogen, as in all legumes. Install the trellis before sowing to avoid damaging the roots. Harvest daily at full maturity — production can stretch over 3-4 weeks.

• Open-pollinated. Modern heritage variety (1979). Largely self-pollinating, very few crosses to fear — an excellent candidate for amateur seed saving.
• Height: 1.5-2 m. Trellis required.
• Maturity: 60-70 days.
• Exposure: full sun; part shade tolerated.
• Well-drained, moderately rich, neutral soil. Don't over-fertilize with nitrogen. Space seeds 3-5 cm apart in the row.
• Direct-sow late April to mid-May for summer harvest, or mid-August for fall harvest. Soak the seeds 8-12 h before sowing. Rhizobium inoculation strongly recommended.