A Surprise Crop of Pomegranates
On the border of our garden (which wasn’t a garden this year because we were too busy with the new campagna to plant anything), is a line of pomegranate trees. The land is terraced, so they’re not very easy to see down there on the slope, and to be honest, since they produced a grand total of two pomegranates last year, I wasn’t really paying attention to them.
Well P and I caught a glimpse of them early this morning, and they were absolutely *full* of melagrane!
Melagrane dal giardino
I love pomegranates, or as we called them back in the Pennsylvania Coal Region, “Indian apples.” I actually didn’t know the fruits were one and the same until I learned about mythology and the story of Persephone in Hades. See, public school education works!
I’ve written about pomegranates before as the harbingers of the fall here in southern Italy — and indeed, the past few days have had a distinct autumnal chill in the air overnight . . . which means my loverly October is just around the corner. Yay!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bowl of seeds to chomp on to keep my antioxidants up.
Pomegranate seeds...yum!
How do you enjoy pomegranates?
23 Beans of Wisdom to “A Surprise Crop of Pomegranates”
Recipes
What an impressive looking crop .Yes I love pomegranates as well, we discovered our tree in an overgrown part of the garden last year, making attractive natural early Christmas decorations. We have harvested some of them this year but they are one fruit that does not seem to have done so well for us this year.
Sorry to hear that Linda, although how nice that you just discovered a tree, much how ours surprised us 🙂
Bellissime!
Bringers of prosperity and opulence too…
I like mine boiled down to a thick aspic as a topping for my homemade chicken liver pâté. Or sprinkled in salad with nuts and flowers, or over filet mignon with balsamic vinegar reduction. Pomegranates rule!
Yay for prosperity! Love your pom uses, Ele!
My grandfathers farm in Sicily has at least 10 of these trees on it, I adore them in salads that have tart greens , such as endive and dandilion in them,or just in a bowl, those and persimmons are 2 my favoriates.
LOVE persimmons too! LOVE LOVE LOVE.
You’re so lucky! I love, love, love pomegranates even though I’d never had one until I moved here. We don’t have any trees, but usually some of O’s friends give us some. Maybe I’ll have to start hinting. 😉
You need a tree, Mary! Get some clippings too 😉
Lucky you!! I love them, but Sarah is obsessed! Now that she know’s yours are ripe, every trip to the store will include a hunt for poms, or a naggging ‘are they here yet?’ haha!
Hahaha hope you find some great ones this season!
One, I love, love, love the new site! Two, poms are the best fall fruit, I swear. Three, I pom with everything: flan, cakes, smoothies, fresh arils alone, tea, fish dishes, chicken sandwiches and somehow trying to see how I can incorporate them into my coffee! 🙂
hugs, girlie.
Haha pom coffee! Hmm…thanks for the compliments Bren 🙂
They are beautiful, one of the best fall fruits every. We like to eat them out of hand. Lucky Girl!
I am indeed! Thanks for coming by, Jamie!
How very lucky you are… I LOVE pomegranates /… get in such a mess when I eat them .. my boys love them too. But even though they are sold here, we a find some soooooo tasteless 🙁
I understand, Anne; I was turned off of them for a long time because in the States, it was pretty rare to find a truly great pomegranate…and for the work and mess involved, you really want spectacular.
I have never eaten any other way except , peeling them an breaking them up .. into pieces… 🙂
Good enough for me Anne!
It must be a real thrill to eat one that is tree ripened and sweet! I hope we get lucky and find some that are edible this year.
Fingers crossed for you Gil!
I have a tiny cutting a neighbor gave me , who knows how long till I actually get a pomegranate!
want to make the reduction of the juices which people use like balsamico!
Good luck Judy!
Ciao! i totally love this fruit…for me its like a very special rutual the cleaning of the seeds from the apple..i find it soooo relaxing…the seed i enjoy just like this or in an cup of fresh yoghurt…cant wait that i get some fresh ones here in the Netherlands…can u send me one?:-)))
I wish! We still have so many! I find it a relaxing exercise too 🙂
gorgeous photos, and I love pomegranates too! Do you have a secret for getting the seeds out so perfectly clean? I don’t mind doing one, because it’s somewhat relaxing, but it’s too time-consuming to do more than that – how do people do enough for a balsamic-like reduction?
I think it really has a lot to do with the pomegranate itself — I’ve had no trouble just popping these seeds out so that cleaning one takes a few minutes…not that I’d want to do more than, say, two or three in one sitting. Maybe they just do them throughout the day! Hahaha 🙂
The 1st time I actually ate pomegranates was in Italy.
I love the things… both as a decoration symbolic of the season AND as a food. My favorite of all time is a pomegranate risotto I once made for a winter solstice feast. Wish I had that recipe now… craziest thing is that I found it in a Martha Stewart magazine! 🙂
Grazie per il bel post.
Jodina of http://www.ItalianoWithJodina.com
Haha, say what you will about Martha, but she does have some good recipes and tips 😉
I have always loved pomegranites but never seem to buy them as often as I would like. Maybe this weekend I’ll hunt for them and see if I can’t fit them into a recipe.
Hope you find some Joanne!
Hmmm. They grow well around here, too. I’d like to plant a tree or two, but I live in a condo, and every time someone plants any kind of fruit on their patio, the rats seem to come and eat them. I don’t want to attract THEM. I’ll keep my eyes open at the farmers’ market instead. Pomegranates are delicious. I mostly eat them in a salad, with balsamic dressing.
Yes, I think that is good reasoning, J; hope you get to enjoy some this year!
What a great crop! How do you get them deseeded so well? I always end up with that nasty pith everywhere.
I just pop them out — I guess that’s thanks to the pomegranate itself, nothing I do in partcular.
Growing up in New York, we used to call them Indian Apples too. Then, when we moved to Arizona, we actually had pomegranate trees in our backyard. I love the crunch of the “seeds” – gosh, I haven’t had one in years! I can’t believe you got so many of them – great haul!
The crunch of the seeds used to freak me out…now I love it!
I love granadas! we also received some pomegranates from the farm. this fruit always reminds me of my childhood in Mexico (maybe because they are not very common in the states?) anyways I love eating them!
Oh that’s funny, Elisa, because here in dialect they are called “granata” more similar to Spanish than Italian!
What a bountiful blessing of pom! I’m thinking lots of salads and chicken dishes.
Sounds good to me, Nate!
That’s fantastic!! Poms are the best… YUM. My grandmother had one in her yard, in California, but it only gave off 2 or 3 in the fall. Not a hearty tree at all.
Lucky girl! 😀
XOXO
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
We were very lucky this year…I think I’m practicing the whole “pom a day keeps the doctor away” thing 😉
We ate these in our salads all last week.
The best way I know of to de-seed them, I found in a food magazine somewhere.
Cut off the top and the bottom making parallel slices.
Then cut a slice from top to bottom and open the thing. From there it takes alittle more time, but they are really easy to get out.
My friend told me that the kind we get in the US are too sweet. I didn’t notice hers being less sweet, but they were sure great in a salad of savoy cabbage, Finnochio, and tomatoes garnished with balsamic vinegar and Olive oil…
Now that you mention it, I do remember the US poms as sweeter….
In NJ, we called them Chinese apples. I too, have a bumper crop of them here in Tuscany.
Interesting on the name! Enjoy Denise 🙂