Quezi

Pomegranate (photo by JOE M500 - CC-BY)

The pomegranate is delicious but it’s a bit awkward and tedious to eat. Here are some tips.

A pomegranate is the size of a large orange and has a tough skin. Inside are a large number of fleshy deep-red seeds which are juicy and refreshing, but the kernel of each seed is hard and bitter. The seeds are in clusters separated by yellow membranes which are unpleasantly bitter. And there’s a tendency for the occasional seed to go rotten, which tastes so unpleasant that it will spoil the whole mouthful.

It’s worth it though, so do persist. Before I go any further, I should mention that the juice stains very easily. You could play safe by preparing it in a room without any fabric, but with care you should be able to manage.

The most straightforward option is to cut it in half along its equator, then again to make quarters, then flex each quarter to expose the seeds. Tease them away from the membrane, collecting them in a bowl. This works fine, but it takes a long time.

The people who should know, the Pomegranate Council, prefer the underwater method. Cut off the crown of the fruit and score the peel to form four (or perhaps six) segments. Dunk the fruit in a bowl of water and use your fingers to break the fruit into its segments. With each segment, bend it to expose the pips and pull them out. The pips sink and the pith floats, so you can then skim off the pith (and discard it), then strain off the water and you are left with the seeds. Here’s a video.

There’s a third way, beloved of TV chefs. Cut the pomegranite in half, and make several deep cuts in each half. Now hold a half over a collecting bowl, flat side down, and whack it hard several times with the back of a wooden spoon. In theory this dislodges the seeds. I can’t even imagine how many out-takes the TV chefs generate when they try to film this successfully.

Once you have the seeds (“arils”, they’re apparently called), eat them by the mouthful. Chew each mouthful gently to burst the juice sacs and swallow the wonderful sweet juice, but don’t chew so hard that you get the bitter flavor from the hard inner part of the seed. You will now have a mass of inner seeds in your mouth. You could spit them out, but most people swallow them and move on to the next mouthful.

I mentioned earlier the occasional seed which goes rotten and spoils the whole mouthful. It’s easy to avoid those once you know how to recognize them. The giveaway is the color – a rotten seed is a browish red rather than a deep but bright red. The difference is subtle, but a rotten seed is easily spotted once you know what to look for.

Not only are pomegranates delicious, they’re high in potassium and vitamin C, a good source of fiber, and particularly high in three polyphenol antioxidants: anthocyanins, tannins and ellagic acid. They’re delicious and guilt-free.