Pomegranates

Before pomegranates were superfoods,

they were Chinese apples.

 

Grandaddy used to sneak them to me every December.  I’m not sure if they were a part of the “bare necessities” he used to bring to our house: two brown paper bags full of whatever a man who took up grocery shopping as his retirement project found at the store.  Maybe it was an excuse to visit us or a way to treat his daughter to delicacies she couldn’t afford as a young widow with three mouths to feed.  Whatever his impulse, in the days when the last meal of the month was always tuna fish casserole, our refrigerator never went without blue cheese and our pantry was stocked with smoked oysters.

And a rare pomegranate .

I remember Grandaddy showing me how to peel the tough skin and fish for ruby seeds among the white membranes.  The explosion of juice in my mouth always erupted a grin on my face.  We’d eat until my lips were stained as dark as a lady of the night’s lips and my fingertips were colored a deep pink.

The thing about eating a pomegranate is that it’s an activity.  You can’t do anything else but just sit there and hunt for seeds and pop them in your mouth.  You have to work to get the juice. 

When pomegranates popped up on the it food list ten years ago, food manufacturers took away the work.  You no longer need to sit with your grandaddy for twenty minutes to get their precious juice

one

drop

at

a

time. 

You can spend out and get a whole carafe full of the juice these days.  I did that once, gasping at the price tag.  Although I love pomegranates, I don’t like the little white fibrous center of the seed.  I was thrilled to try a fast pass to the good stuff.

But pomegranate juice from a jar is too strong.  It’s not that sweet burst you get from the seed.  It needs diluting.  That makes it a good cocktail mixer, but not much else.  Pomegranate juice is added to all sorts of juice blends and dried fruits these days, but none of it resembles the Chinese apples Grandaddy and I used to eat.  I find myself shying away from my old favorite now that it turned super.

And yet, as Christmas approaches, there they are: the real fruit, just waiting for eager hands with twenty minutes to spare.

I buy my bare neccesity and take it home.  I peel back the thick skin and fish out seeds for my boys.  I watch them intently as they bite down and flavor explodes in their mouths, spreading  unmistakable smiles across their faces.

These are pomegranates, I tell them.  But when I was a little girl, my grandaddy called them Chinese apples.

They repeat both names back to me as they always do when learning something new.  Their little brains eagerly imprinting a new idea.

Some seeds you plant, others you eat.

They taste like rubies and they stain you

through and through.