Ted and Grandma

My Grandma was an amazing cook and she was always exposing us as children to new and exotic foodstuffs … pretty brave when you think that most young children eat based on colour. Supposedly human beings have an inbuilt survival mechanism from cave man days based on reaction to what the colour of food “told us” in the days before refrigerators (and sense of smell obviously) aka whether something was safe to eat or not!!!

Apparently children are not born with this ability and the mechanism develops as they grow up, which possibly explains why green is bad, but blue (bubble-gum flavoured ice cream for example) which typically would just be such a no go adult area, holds no such fear for kids.

I remember one of the strangest looking yet most exotic of fruits that she bought (must have cost a fortune now I realise) and tempted us into tasting it.  Yes, dear readers it was the not so humble pomegranate.

A native of the middle east and India it was soon transported to the Greek and Roman empires where it quickly became revered and cemented its place in our historic folklore. There are those who would tell us that it was in fact the “apple” that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden – those of you who read my Quince post will know of course that this simply can’t be true (or can it???). We do know that it was much valued by desert travellers as it provided an easy to transport, thirst quenching, full of vitamins, great tasting fruit, wrapped in a semi hard skin that protected the between 200 and 1000 seeds inside, each surrounded by a water laden pulp.

It’s attributed a range of powers and even now some cultures have a soon to be married woman split open a pomegranate and the number of seeds that fall to the ground indicate how many children the union will be blessed with. Naturally they’re full of good stuff that helps protect our skin, has anti-inflammatory properties, supports our liver, help fight infections and protect against arthritis. Grandma taught us the fabulous trick of how to get the seeds out of a pomegranate by cutting it in half then scoring a cross into the back of the fruit and tapping it vigorously over a large bowl with a big wooden spoon (read small children dangerously wielding a culinary weapon) before adding them to dishes or cooking down to make a sweet and sour like syrup. 

… which I now know is called Pomegranate Molasses and is totally and utterly delicious and good for enhancing almost everything … even pouring over blue ice cream …