Promising pomegranates

The pomegranate, that beautiful fruit with the jewel-like red seeds, has recently exploded onto the culinary scene, which is apropos for a fruit which inspired the name of the hand-tossed explosive known as the grenade.

(Grenadiers, 18th century soldiers who specialized in throwing grenades, thought the device's shrapnel pellets reminded them of those seeds.)

Though the pomegranate may have only recently come into its own as a trendy ingredient, it has been around for a long time. Pomegranates as old as 2,500 years have been unearthed in ancient Corinth, and they were being grown a lot earlier than that -- about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, which makes them among the first fruits ever cultivated.

Not surprisingly for a crop so old, the pomegranate is the subject of much legend and lore. The ancient Egyptians, for example, used to bury their dead with pomegranates on the thinking that the fruit's blood red color was associated with rebirth. A representation of the fruit made of ivory was found in King Tut's tomb.

The pomegranate figures in the Bible as well. In Deuteronomy, Moses assures the Israelites in the desert that they will have access to the fruit again in the Promised Land. Some scholars contend that it was actually a pomegranate that tempted Eve in the biblical account of the Garden of Eden.

For Buddhists, the pomegranate is one of three blessed fruits. Likewise, the Prophet Mohammed encouraged his followers to eat them. They've been praised by the likes of Homer, Chaucer and Shakespeare.

But it was the ancient Greeks for whom the pomegranate may have held the greatest significance. According to Greek mythology, Hades, the god of the underworld, abducted the beautiful Persephone, the daughter of the goddess of nature, Demeter. Bereft, Demeter let the crops wither. Fearing the earth would die, Zeus ordered Hades to send Persephone home so long as she had eaten no food in the meantime. But Hades had offered her a pomegranate, which she ate, spitting out all of the seeds except for six. Therefore it was decreed that she could spend six months of every year on earth, during which time her mother is happy and tends the crops, but she has to spend the other six months in the underworld, during which time her mother mourns and lets the crops die. Thus, the cycle of spring and winter was born.

You'd think a fruit as ancient and as culturally significant as the pomegranate would have always been popular, but it has not been, chiefly because it is labor intensive to eat, though drinking its juice requires nothing more than rolling it on a table to break it up inside, inserting a straw, and sipping. If you want to use the juice as an ingredient, simply cut off the flat end and squeeze. (Easier still, of course, is to just buy bottled juice, a recent development now readily available at the market.) Getting the seeds out of a pomegranate requires a bit more effort. Score, then break apart the fruit, submerge it in water, separate the seeds from the membrane, and strain them out.

Increasingly people are finding that it's worth the trouble to prepare a pomegranate, partly because scientists have discovered that it can possibly stave off a host of maladies ranging from cancer to erectile dysfunction, but mostly because it is a delicious and dazzling addition to any meal. And since pomegranates are in season through January, this is especially true around the holidays.

Holiday Pomegranate Cocktail

This elegant aperitif, adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit, is a festive way to usher in the holiday season and the New Year as well. You could use bottled juice, but freshly squeezed will produce superior results.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh pomegranate juice (from about two pomegranates)

1/4 sugar

1 teaspoon orange-flower water

2 tablespoons frozen pomegranate seeds

2 bottles (750 ml each) chilled champagne or Prosecco

Directions:

Combine juice and sugar and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue to boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in orange-flower water. Chill syrup for at least one hour. Pour 1 and 1/2 teaspoons syrup into a champagne flute. Fill flute with champagne and stir gently. Float a few seeds in the glass and serve. Serves 8.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Fridays at 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.