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Back in 1970, just after our stone house was struck by lightening and was wrecked, we bought a “temporary” house in the small village of Parishville, NY. My real estate company had it for sale. It was a huge 2 story Victorian, “package” home from Sears Roebuck that sold in the early 1900’s for $2,800.00 per kit. There were about 5 or 6 of them built on this street. It had all new aluminum siding on it and brand new kitchen cabinets in this really large room that was supposed to be the kitchen. It also had an IRS lien on it and the owner had listed it with us for $8,500.00
This house had about 8 very big rooms and one small bathroom. For some reason it was not selling. Right after the fire, there was virtually no places for rent in our area that would or could house 7 people of which 5 were kids. I called my partner and asked him to offer the guy $6,000.00 because the house was empty and perhaps the IRS would settle for $6,000. To make a long story short, the house was purchased for $6,500.00.
We figured we would be there about 3 or 6 months, which turned into 3 years.
This was a fun house; we had a fun time, fixing it up. One of the things it had was a 20 x 20 ft. shed on the back on the kitchen area. It was truly filled with garbage. So I hired one of the nearby college kids with a pickup truck for $50.00 and he cleaned it out in one day, taking about 15 loads to the dump.
This room had a step down into it and we decided we would make that into our “sunken” master bedroom.
During this time, our wine tasting group and wine making friends to say nothing of our wine drinking friends used to be in and out of this house all the time. One of them was a married gal named Minola who was quite the organic gardener who had a crush on Carl. I think he listened to her brownie recipes. Carl, though a “man’s man”, is also a very kind and nice guy who is easy to talk to as he is a great listener and lots of ladies loved that about him. Especially, Minola who happened to be a home vintner! So Minola decided one day to bring Carl a gift. It was 6 bottles of Pea Pod wine. We proceeded to put them on the wine rack on top of the refrigerator.
Minola indicated that this was newly bottled and would require at least 6 months before it was drinkable.
Well, about 2 or 3 month’s later we are awakened, in the middle of the night, by the sound of a shot or what we thought was a shot, only to have a series of an additional 5 explosion sounds or shots within the time we are sitting up in bed, turning on the lights and looking at each other.
In a flash we are out into the kitchen, only to discover Minola’s pea pod wine all over the place. The bottles had apparently built up pressure, exploded the caps and the necks off the bottles and made a genuine mess.
Needless to say, we never did get to taste Pea Pod wine. Upon hearing of this experience, Minola kindly offered Carl another 6 bottles; however, he managed to beg off from receiving that kind gift as I rolled my eyes behind her back.
I personally have never made Pea Pod wine. So I had to search for what I think may be a good recipe.
So, here it is…. Ta Da! The long awaited……
Pea pod wine
4 lbs empty pea pods
2 lbs granulated sugar
2 lemons
2 oranges
3-1/2 quarts water
1/4 tsp tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
wine yeast
Use fresh young pea pods as soon as possible after they have been picked and shelled. Freeze them if you need more than one shelling session to collect enough. While bringing the water to a boil, thinly peel the oranges and lemons and add the peelings and the pea pods to the water. Hold at a low boil for 30 minutes and remove from heat until cool. Strain the liquor over the sugar, yeast nutrient and tannin and stir well until dissolved. Discard pods and peelings. Add juice from lemons and oranges, stir and add yeast. When ferment is active, transfer to secondary and fit airlock. When fermentation is complete (specific gravity of 0.990 or less), rack into bottles and age at least 6 months before tasting. Makes a light, attractive, German-type wine.
This basic "pea pod wine" recipe works for most pea or bean pod varieties.
Common garden pea pods and bean pods contain varying amounts of sugar and have long been a base ingredient for wine. It really does not matter whether the peas are snow peas, spring peas, sweet peas, black eyed peas, Crowder peas, or whatever, or even if they are pods from beans (string beans, pinto beans, red beans, black beans, kidney beans, navy beans, white beans, broad beans, lima beans, etc.) rather than peas. Green pods make the best wine, but if the pods are just beginning to turn from green to yellow (on their way to brown) but have not yet dried out, they will work.
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
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