Sauced In New York Sometimes the food is in the sauce, sometimes we are
My mother always pomegranates in the house – especially during the holidays. Now, there is rarely never actual food in her cupboards (I mean, there are tons of condiments and lots of crackers and dips, but not, you know, substantial stuff like chicken and beef). However, pomegranates are always at the ready. Because who doesn’t want to crack open the rough, dry skin of a pomegranate and rifle through the pockets for the sweet-bitter, popping, hand-staining red seeds?
In Mexico, they sold plastic cups filled to the top with those slightly translucent seeds. They looked like tiny, gleaming jewels and were quite pretty, catching the afternoon sunlight and tossing it back at pedestrians walking through the tienda (open air market). But a spoonful or two were really the most one person could be expected to eat. More than that and the tongue puckers up and you’re finished.
There’s a couple of theories out there that instead of an apple, Eve (of Adam and Eve, originally of the Garden of Eden) might have eaten a pomegranate. Poor thing. She didn’t even get a chance to have it in a martini (pomegranate juice with vodka and a little Cointreau definitely out-classes a Appletini any day of the week) before being thrown out of Paradise.
A recent issue of Bon appetit listed the secret behind seeding a pomegranate and not ending up spattered in blood-red juice. You cut the fruit in half (not end to end, but through the fat middle), and then over a bowl, cup the open end in one hand. With the other, tap on the shell with a wooden spoon. Most of the seeds fall out into your hand. You can seed several at a time, then keep them in the refrigerator. I love them on yogurt and granola in the morning, or in salads. Yum!