Why do carrots go in the soup before peas?

Have you ever smelled a pot of soup bubbling on the stove? Warm steam floats up into the air. Bits of orange and green bob around in the pot. The orange bits are carrots, and the green bits are peas.

A cook puts the carrots in first. The peas wait on the side until much later. So why do carrots go in the soup before peas?

Let's start with a carrot. A raw carrot is hard. When you bite one, it goes crunch! A hard carrot needs lots of cooking before you can chew it easily.

That is why the cook adds the carrots right at the start. The cook slides them in carefully and stands back from the hot pot. Now the carrots have the whole cooking time ahead of them.

Next, the soup begins to simmer, which means bubbling gently with small, soft bubbles. The hot soup wraps around every carrot piece. Bit by bit, the heat soaks into the hard carrot.

The carrots simmer for a long time. Slowly, they turn tender, which means soft enough to squish with a spoon.

Now look at a pea. A pea is tiny, and it is already soft. Peas need only a short simmer to turn tender. What do you think would happen if the cook put the peas in at the start, too?

The peas would simmer far too long. They would turn mushy and squashed. Their bright green color would fade away.

So the cook waits and adds the peas near the end. A few minutes later, the peas are tender too. Now the carrots and the peas are ready at the same time.

Simmer. Tender. Hard carrots need a longer simmer than peas to get tender, so they go first.

Sweet dreams, and enjoy every warm, tender spoonful of your next bowl of soup.