As a child I used to love to sit outside and eat pomegranates and see how far I could spit the little seeds. It was also a real kick to spit them out machine gun style. At this year’s Fancy Food Show in New York City pomegranate was everywhere. In chocolates, energy drinks, tea, coffee, bar-b-q sauce, hot sauce, caramels, jelly beans and probably some other foods I missed. Pomegranate is a reddish fruit filled with hundreds of seeds. It’s really more like a pea pod than a grape or orange. Each seed is encased in a clear sack that is filled with a deep red colored liquid that is more tart than sweet. The seeds are packed together in sections of the pomegranate and must be gently pried out of the leathery container or you’ll squirt the precious juice all over yourself and anything around you. To get the maximum amount of juice you have to gently grind the little seed sacks between your molars. This is not the type of food to give to your children when they’re sitting close to anything white. It’s also not good for people who can’t use their tongue to separate the seeds from the flesh.

Recently a variety of companies have been producing pomegranate extract in bottles, Pomegranate juice is heavy, tart, and mildly sweet. My son and I really like to mix about 4 ounces of pomegranate juice with about 12 ounces of 7 Up or Sprite. I’ve also mixed it with Dr. Pepper for a quirky tart-dark taste. We liked the caramels and bar-b-q sauces with pomegranate. I thought the jelly beans were too sweet for me but I’m sure kids will love them.

Pomegranates are supposed to be good for you. Everyone was tauting its value as a source of beneficial antioxidants. Frankly, I just like the way a pomegranate tastes. If you have older children or grandchildren with sufficient mouth dexterity and some old clothes please consider buying them a pomegranate, if you can find one. In my opinion, it should be a room temperature and eaten with your feet hanging off a deck or pier. Some people say you can eat the seed. I never did. Enjoy the fruit and the juice but spit out the seeds – machine-gun style if you can.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.