My little pomegranate Pip

Supersize me.

This week I got the “joy” of watching an episode of Oprah. She was making
her famous martinis with pomegranate juice. What the hell? Our peeps have been eating pomegranates from time eternal. When did they become so chic? So available? So Oprahfied?

We were in Tucson this past April and were amazed at the number of pomegranate bushes that we saw at old farmsteads, ranches and home sites we toured. The fruit is beautiful and exotic and the plant itself lovely with beautiful red flowers that develop these full red orbs. We never got the full story as to why a Hispanic-settled area had such a profusion of these bushes. I haven’t been able to find too many accounts of pomegranate use in traditional Mexican/Arizonan cooking. In Iran, they are used as a fresh fruit, juiced and pomegranate syrup is used for cooking. In the fall, the markets are full of pomegranates. A term of endearment in Farsi is calling someone a doone-anar (my little pomegranate pip).

When my mom was pregnant with my brother, she way 12,000 miles away from her family in Chicago. She had few cravings, but her strongest was for pomegranate. In the early winter, my father searched the city and found her two wizened pomegranates, which she savored. When I was growing up, the pomegranate was a treat. They would start to show up in the stores around October and they were tiny shrived fruit that we would pull apart and then marvel at the jeweled pips in the funny membrane. They were very biological, reminding us of brains, lungs and later to me, fish ovaries! We would take out the pips and either suck off the juice and flesh, leaving the pip, or eat the whole thing. They were so much fun and so exotic, but comforting and familiar.

Our American friends learned to love them as well. If my mom was particularly lucky and scored at the store, she and her friends would get together, put on the gloves and remove the fruit from the membrane and serve them all ready cleaned for special occasions. The seds/pips would be piled into a huge cut crystal bowl and you were able to enjoy them as dessert without dealing with the mess of cleaning them yourself.

Pomegranates are now found at Costco and their juice in your local health food store. They are no longer as magical as they were before, but piled high in the crystal bowl from my childhood, they are still majestic.