A tough-skinned fruit packed with hundreds of jewel-like seeds (arils), each surrounded by tart-sweet juice — a Persian native steeped in mythology.
A fruit of myth
Pomegranates feature in the mythology of nearly every civilization that grew them. In Greek myth, Persephone’s eating six pomegranate seeds in the underworld doomed her to spend half the year there — explaining the seasons. In Judaism, the pomegranate is one of the Seven Species of Israel, and tradition holds that a pomegranate has 613 seeds, matching the 613 commandments of the Torah. In Persian culture, the pomegranate is the fruit of paradise.
What you eat
What you eat in a pomegranate is the arils — small ruby sacs each containing one seed and the juicy edible flesh around it. A typical pomegranate contains 600–1,400 arils, packed in honeycomb chambers separated by yellowish, bitter, inedible membrane (mesocarp). The skin and the membrane are not eaten.
How to deseed without a mess
The classic spray-the-kitchen-red technique can be avoided by submerging a halved pomegranate in a bowl of water and pulling the arils free underwater — the arils sink, the bitter pith floats, and no juice splashes. Alternatively, score the skin into quarters, break the fruit open, and bash the back with a wooden spoon over a bowl while holding the cut side down.
Pomegranate juice
The juice has a long history in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. It’s the base of:
- Grenadine — a sweet syrup originally from pomegranate (now usually corn syrup with red coloring; real grenadine is becoming a cocktail-bar specialty again).
- Pomegranate molasses — boiled-down juice used in Levantine and Persian cooking for a sweet-tart syrup with no equivalent.
- Fesenjan — Persian stew of duck or chicken in a thick walnut-pomegranate sauce.
Antioxidant marketing
Pomegranate juice was heavily marketed in the 2000s for its antioxidant content. The claims, especially for cardiovascular benefits, sometimes outran the evidence. The juice does contain higher levels of certain polyphenols than most fruit juices, but most marketed health claims have been ruled deceptive in regulatory cases (POM Wonderful spent years in litigation with the FTC over its specific health claims).