I have to admit that I'm biased towards pomegranates. They are my favorite fruit and no fall season is complete until I have spent at least five minutes picking up each piece at the grocery store trying to decide which is the perfect first pomegranate for the year. One year I ate three a week for over two months. My poor fingers were stained by the fruit until nearly Christmas when they had finally gone out of season.
As an avid admirer of odd historical and mythological information I've latched onto the many stories told about the fruit. After Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and brought into the underworld it was her consumption of six (or three, the number varies) individual pomegranate seeds that doomed her to spend half of every year below the earth as his wife.
The word pomegranate occurs at least fifteen times in the bible. It was believed by some that the juice left stains as a reminder of Christ's blood and sacrifice. Others believe that the original fruit in the garden of Eden was not an apple but a pomegranate instead. They are also prominent in the beliefs of other cultures including Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism.
So why did they inspire me today? To eat an entire pomegranate without bursting any of the seeds before they reach your mouth takes care, practice, and an attention to detail. You can't go hacking into it with a knife or a spoon and expect perfection. So they inspired me to go back through what I had recently written and decide if I had done the same with my novel. I hadn't, tomorrow will have to be an editing day it seems. On a happier note, it was a wonderful pomegranate and large enough that I've saved the other half for tomorrow, to make up for the dreary bit of editing to do.
Lindsay-15,404
Kris-13,662
NaNoWriMo Goal for today's date-18,337
Still behind but much closer than last week!
I haven't eaten a pomegranate in 40 years. We used to buy them at Model's Grocery in Roundup (which was across the street from elementary school) and we loved them because they took a long time to eat and we lived a long ways from the school. If they are at the store this afternoon, I'll buy one and think of you and your editing. I was never a good editor...more of a creator.
ReplyDeleteHey, I bought a pomegranate at the store ---$3.00. Next time, let's try a blog about an apple or an orange.
ReplyDeletePomegrantates are delicious, but expensive and very labor intensive. Good luck with your writing.
ReplyDeleteA couple observations about pomegranates and why I'll probably wait another 40 years before I eat another. They have are a "pithy" fruit. I guess if I'm looking for bulk, I now know where to find it. Plus the individual red succulent seeds look like a red kernel of corn. That wasn't very appetizing to me. LOL
ReplyDeleteSorry to lead you astray Steve. Pomegranates are not for everyone. Usually when they are needed in cooking or baking, I'm the one that gets hauled out and asked to get those seeds out. As you guys pointed out, they are also expensive. I think of them as a healthy treat, not just a piece of fruit. Plus, I love little things like those 'red kernels'. Luckily I have two who agree with me on how wonderful they are. Kris-who doesn't get the seeds out himself either, that's my job. And my dog Ludo-who has tried to get the seeds out when I turned my back to grab something.
ReplyDeleteI think they look like little red jewels. Or droplets of blood.
ReplyDeleteI love pomegranates :) Here's another piece of pomegranate lore--I used to work in a historic house museum that had, carved into the woodwork, a pomegranate motif. It was supposed to represent either wealth or fertility...and given that the couple who owned the mansion was childless but of course loaded, I'll go with the former theory.
ReplyDeleteWelcome and thanks for visiting Rowenna! What a great story. You don't happen to have any pictures of that carving do you? Sounds like it was an amazing house. Great blog by the way, can't wait to see more.
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