Ode to Pomegranates

& a recipe for warm-cold pomegranate salad

Pomegranates are among my favorites. I love remembering a 5th grade mythology lesson about Persephone and Hades, and I relish the vivid imagery imagination created then, and my mind still holds clear now, of their biannual journeys above and below. It’s an embodied image for me, and I can just about feel myself making the journey, too; it’s one way I mark and celebrate the seasons every year.

Many years later, I add to this early memory an equivalent delight when I discover that the flaming orange blossom that catches my eye in a neighbor’s yard in spring yields the red fruits I love in fall. I plant a bush in my own yard even though I know I’ll never be there long enough to enjoy the cycle of the fruit. Someone will.

About this time last year, while living in an agricultural zone of the Chihuahuan Desert, where New Mexico, Mexico, and Texas come together along the generous banks of the Rio Grande, I discovered pomegranate trees in all the yards. My neighbors leave most of the fruits on the trees so that when they lose their leaves each fall, round, red fruit hang like ornaments to decorate everyone’s yards for the winter season this deeply Spanish and Native community celebrates holistically and syncretically as Tortugas Pueblo Saint’s Day, 12 de Diciembre, and Catholic Christmas.

The only source of challenge this fruit consistently presented was how to open it without making a colossal red, juicy mess and wasting precious seeds along the way. What a boon, then, when a couple winters ago, local markets in Massachusetts made it super easy to access key ingredients for Middle Eastern inflected cooking, and I ran across the key for properly opening and accessing the pomegranate’s goodness. As with many things, success depends upon paying close attention to how nature organized, in this case, a sectional fruit, and then, diligently following the fruit’s lead.

I won’t lie; I still feel a twinge of worry each time I begin to open the fruit. I have always felt that wasting even one seed was tantamount to sinful bad luck, despite the fact that I don’t much ascribe to sin as a concept. Sin or no, deep in my being, I feel that failing to honor and appreciate each and every lustrous, jewel-like seed with its somewhat challenging textural variation and simultaneously sweet, tart, and bitter juice just feels wrong.

Thanks, however, to a season of market-inspired deep dives into a region of the world I’ve yet to visit, my success rate for opening the fruit is now on par with all its other delights, and I add it frequently to late fall and winter meals, just as I do home-grown sprouts. I love combining textures and temperatures to fuel my way through the cold and dark time of the year, and I hope you enjoy the following sample from the many options the pomegranate inspires. I also hope that the whimsy with which I created this dish inspires you to create your very own, with a spirit of adventure!

Big love, Ashley

P.S. There’s still time to participate before we swing into winter… With our Fall issue, FED opens wide the doors for everyone to add their voice by contributing to a FED Friendsgiving. I genuinely hope that you will share your taste of home with us. The table awaits…

Send a recipe, an anecdote, and/or a favorite food plus an image. (It doesn’t have to have anything do with the U.S., Thanksgiving, history, etc.; it only needs to be your taste of home, however you define it, and in whatever medium you’d like to share it.)

We’ll pull everything that arrives together and serve it up as FED dishes before the season changes. Yum!

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Warm-Cold Pomegranate Salad

Ingredients

• pomegranate seeds

• sprouts

• daikon

• scallions

• spinach or other dark, leafy green

• mushrooms

• oil of choice for sautéing

• salt and pepper to taste, ditto red pepper flake or Aleppo chile

Method

1. Prep all your ingredients: gather seeds and sprouts, grate daikon, thinly slice scallions, wash spinach, and slice mushrooms.

2. Sauté spinach and mushrooms—first the mushrooms until browned and a little crispy by barely stirring, then toss in the spinach and chile flake and leave on heat till wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat to assemble your salad.

3. Assemble salad with the warm ingredients first. Top with daikon, sprouts, pomegranate and fresh cracked black pepper plus a sprinkle of chile (my preference is Aleppo or something local or homegrown).

Tips

• SproutPeople are my go-to for all things sprouting. They have many videos so you can learn all and more about how to do it, and they offer both seeds and supplies. Home sprouting can be a great thing to do with kids or a meditative practice for oneself, and the result is highly nutritious fresh, organic vegetables for cooking and snacking as close as your kitchen counter every day.

• For how to open a pomegranate the easy way that the fruit intended, do a quick online search. Videos abound.

• Be creative: make the warm part of this dish with any fresh veggies on hand, and then, top the warm with raw anything that you find or grow because it adds color, texture, adventure, and surprise.

• Serve this extravaganza in a favorite bowl. I served mine in a bowl made by Judith Bryant, Vermont potter extraordinaire. That the bowl was made by her generous hands and spirit and sent with love to help me heal, lends metaphor and memory to the honoring of this dish and elevates it beyond simple ingredients, however inspired. It makes occasion of meal, every time.

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For more goodies…

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