These days, at a stretch, you might call them Asian fusion, but in truth no one knew the inspiration behind the stuffed pea pods.

They were the fiddliest hors d’oeurve: snip the corner off a steamed snow pea, use a pastry tube to fill it with a mixture of cream cheese, garlic, tarragon and canned shrimp, repeat. Garnish with sprigs of dill.

Melva Bina Nowell served them in the lounge room of her suburban Altona home for a decade.

“Why would you stuff a snow pea?” asks her son, Grant Nowell. “It’s the weirdest thing. Mum was famous well beyond the family for her stuffed pea pods.”