Total Fascination

I am totally fascinated with the pomegranate.  I have never really eaten a whole one, one that has been turned into juice or used in a recipe.  My roommates eat them all of the time, so they have sparked a recent interest. 

As a result, I decided to buy two to display on a cheese board that I am making for my cousin's baby shower tomorrow.  I thought it would be pretty and festive for the holidays.  I arrived home from Whole Foods to disect my first pomegrante, and luckily my roommates were there to support me through this process.  Read proclaimed I picked two good ones, and Nicole demonstrated how to get the seeds out of the fruit.  Slice the whole fruit in to quarters. 

Fill a bowl with water, and then immerse the fruit in the water while you rip the seads out.  The white border will float to the top while the seeds float to the bottom.  (Science can be so cool, but someone please elaborate on the lesson learned...is it that the seeds are more dense and that's why they float to the bottom?  I think so, but science is clearly not my forte.  Although, I did win the science award in eighth grade.  I digress....)

I kind of felt like I had been hiding under a rock for not having had this experience until now, but my roomies reassured me by proclaiming the pomegrante is an exotic fruit.  And because I enjoy history so much, here's a brief synopsis from Wikipedia on the history of the pomegrante.

A pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall. The pomegranate is mostly native to the Iranian Plateau and the Himalayas in Northern India. It has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times, and today, is widely cultivated throughout Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Egypt, China, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the drier parts of southeast Asia, the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe, and tropical Africa. Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated in parts of California and Arizona for juice production.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruit is typically in season from September to February. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is in season from March to May.

An ancient fruit, pomegranate is mentioned in Europe as early as the Iron-Age Greek Mythology in the Homeric hymns. Yet, it has still to reach mainstream prominence as a consumer fruit in commercial markets of North America and the Western Hemisphere.

Nicole, you weren't wrong about it dating back to Greek mythology!  You can read more about the history of the pomegranate as well as the health benefits it provides here.