It makes the peas taste funny

[shewhomust]

My current bedtime reading is Alice Thomas Ellis' Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring: A Gallimaufry, a ramble thtough the author's collection of historic cookbooks and household guides. She is both entertaining and irritating - this passage about pea soup is not so much typical as exemplary:

Speaking of which, before the Clean Air Act, London fogs were known as pea-soupers, indicating, I believe, that this dish was once more widely known and consumed than it is now. I
make it from dried peas, or the mushy sort which you can buy frozen, and add a great deal of chopped mint and a large spoonful of honey: it is my favourite soup but no one else likes it. 1n
Victorian times both the air pollution and pea soup were known as London Particulars. I was living in Hampstead when the last fog fell on London: I had been to the corner shop and had to find my way home by feeling along the walls and railings and going up front steps until I got to the right house. Truly, you could not see your hand in front of your nose. It was oddly thrilling and although a lot of people died from inhaling fog, it added a touch of drama and mystery to the prosaic London scene.

"Now" is 2004.