07/04/05 They aren`t your cafeteria`s peas

As a grade schooler, many moons ago, I remember dreading the spoonful of peas plopped on my cafeteria platter, mushy and yellow they didn't look anything like the peas my mom served. School lunches have changed dramatically since those days and thankfully so have frozen peas. While you can still occasionally find bricks of frozen produce in the supermarket, for the most part vegetables are now frozen individually using new technology. Thanks to I. Q. F. Individual Quick Freeze, what used to be mushy is in many cases, simply marvelous. So marvelous that the Dining Out section of the New York Times recently did a front page feature on the new frozen vegetable. Frozen peppers rated top reviews along with beans, peas and corn. Quick freezing techniques, where produce goes immediately from field to frozen, means in many cases vegetables will actually taste fresher than those that have been in the produce isle for who knows how many days. At the price of fresh peppers, give the frozen a try, I'm hooked!! I'm Susan Allen. This is "Food Forethought".