Home, All Posts, RSS feed

Pomegranates

2015 December 22. Tuesday.

Pomegranates! We all no&luvem, but do we understand them?

Cultivation of the Pomegranate

Pomegranates are native to a region from Iran to northern India. Pomegranates were brought to the Middle East, South Asia, the Mediterranean, California, and Arizona by humans! (Note that this author is based in Kentucky.) Generations of human selection have made pomegranates much bigger and easier to extract the goods from than they started, although this author can’t find any good photos.

To see what I mean, look at this corn:

How to Prepare a Pomegranate

Pomegranates look like this:

To eat it, you need to get the seeds away from the pulp. Here’s how I do that:

1. Use your hands to rip the pomegranate into thirds.
2. Pick up one specific third of those three thirds.
3. Use your other hand to fill a large pot or bowl halfway up with room temperature water.
4. Submerge the third that’s in your hand and scrape it and rub it and so on. The pulp floats and the seeds sink.
   • Continue until all the pulp is seperated from all the seeds
5. Compost your pulp and strain your seeds.
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 for remaining two thirds.
7. Pour your seeds into a fancy white bowl.
8. Begin munching.

Cultural Meaning of the Pomegranate

Here in 21st centuey United States pomegranates are just a weird and yummy food. Apparently it meant something to the greeks:

The mythology of ancient Greece regarded this fruit as the symbol of life, marnage and rebirth in the abduction story of Persephone by Hades, the god of the underworld.

source

Public Domain Dedication.