pomegranate 2

I was actually going somewhere different with that pomegranate thing, before I got sidetracked.

What I meant to write about, is the fact that I'm in love with pomegranates. I think they're so freakin sexy. They give me that flip-flop in the stomach when I think of them, same feeling my ex used to give me way back when. There's nothing like them -- truly; they're in a genus by themselves: Punica granatum. And I can only get them in the fall, which drives my lust to unimaginable levels the rest of the year.

They were first cultivated in Iran and Kandahar, a dry semi-desert region in southeast Afghanistan where frost rarely touches the ground. Kandahar is best known now as a stronghold of poppies and of the Taliban, but still the Kandahar people take pride in their pomegranates -- said to be the finest in the world.

Pomegranates traveled the silk road. They fell into the hands of the Phoenecians, who gave them their genus -- Punica, the Roman name for Carthage. They gave their name to Granada, home of the thousand arches of the Alhambra. They are mentioned in the Old Testament. Hundreds of years later Mohammed said of them, There's not a pomegranate in the world that doesn't have among its seeds, at least one seed that comes from Jannah (heaven). They are a beloved part of Rosh Hashoneh celebrations around the world. They are pictured in the art of ancient Egypt. They flowered in the hanging gardens of Babylon.

Pomegranate means "seeded apple". It has no relatives among other fruits. It stands unique: rind around clustered arils, each aril a blob of pulp around seed. The juice that sprays from the arils can stain clothes like blood; nothing but bleach can get it out. In fact, the boiled rind is used to make a red dye for cloth. The tree has a high tannin content and has long been useful in leather preparation. The leaves can be processed into ink. The pressed arils make pomegranate juice, which is the main ingredient in grenadine, the syrup that makes tequila sunsets blush.

Pomegranates. I've got a thing for them. I mean, who doesn't?

Hades touched Persephone on the shoulder. Before you go, he said, take one gift from me, in farewell. The girl had spent months sitting motionless upon the throne he built for her, refusing all food, not speaking to her captor or even looking his way. But when he unfolded his hand and showed her a cluster of pomegranate seeds glistening in his palm, she caught her breath. She had a thing for pomegranates.

The gods had intervened and she would soon be home safe with her mother. What was the harm? Yes, she'd always been warned that even divine visitors to the underworld must eat no food there, or risk being trapped in the land of the dead forever. But -- these were pomegranate seeds. She bit her lip. Her mouth watered. No, she told him, really. I'm not hungry.

Just have a taste, he said.

When Hermes came to spirit the young goddess up to the sunlight after her long, dreary imprisonment, he found Hades smiling. She can't go, said the dark god. She ate the food of the dead. She is mine now, forever.

Persephone gasped, Demeter raged, and in the end Zeus struck a bargain to keep the peace. Because she had eaten four seeds, she would spend four months a year in the land of the dead. Each year when she goes to her black throne, Demeter wanders the earth in sadness. Crops die and the land falls barren until her daughter returns with the spring.

Thus did Persephone inflict winter upon us all, and blight the land she loved -- all because she couldn't say no to a handful of pomegranate seeds.

Well. I guess I can understand that.