Preparing tear peas at Nerua, a restaurant at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The peas are known as “green caviar” among Spain’s top chefs. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

Mr. Minder’s reporting from the field, in this case the rarified field of Michelin-starred chefs, reminds us that the foodie phenomenon (sometimes now bordering on annoyingly precious, and risking the celebrity-worshipping tendencies that will ruin all good fun) is spreading good old fashioned common sense practices far and wide:

Top Chefs and Local Farmers in Spain Regenerate Their ‘Green Caviar’

By RAPHAEL MINDER

ARRIETA, Spain — Making his way down a row of pea plants, Iker Villasana Hernaez, a Basque farmer, leans down to feel each pod individually before deciding whether it is ready to pick.

If the peas inside feel slightly hard, “best to leave it for one more day,” he said. “It’s really all about the perfect timing.”

Such harvesting is backbreaking work, particularly compared with the tractor-driven, industrial farming commonly used for peas. But the reward is that this pea, called the “guisante lágrima,” or “tear pea,” because of its small size and shape, has also become known as “green caviar” among Spain’s flourishing community of top chefs.

It is a vegetable so highly prized that, once it is shelled, its value reaches around 200 euros a kilogram, or roughly $100 a pound. That places it in the ranks of the world’s exquisitely priced edible plants and vegetables. (The hop shoot sells for as much as €1,000 a kilo.)

“This is an extraordinary and incredibly seasonal produce,” said Joan Roca, the Catalan chef whose family-run restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, has been rated the best in the world. “This pea really is like a grain of caviar that explodes in the mouth.”

But the tear pea also exemplifies the symbiotic relationship between Spain’s leading chefs and local farmers, and how it is helping revive some rare and nearly forgotten indigenous produce.

In fact, Mr. Villasana Hernaez grows everything exclusively for Josean Alija, the chef of Nerua, a restaurant in Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, which has been awarded one Michelin star.

Nerua’s ascendancy allowed Mr. Villasana Hernaez to turn his farming hobby into a full-time job and “a nonstop experiment with weird and wonderful products.

Mr. Villasana Hernaez, 39, said he was always attracted by the farmland and planted an orchard as a youngster next to his family’s holiday home.

Five years ago, after his mother died, he made a more radical lifestyle change and walked away from the family-owned driving school where he had taught.

He decided to start “growing things that others didn’t.” For the first two years, he sold as many as 20 varieties of pumpkins and other produce at specialty food markets and local fairs, until a friend put him in touch with Mr. Alija, who offered him a chance to break through as a top restaurant supplier…

Read the whole story here.