It’s pomegranate season and we like to keep a running supply at Casa Aguiar. Ice the Dog is a fan, too. It takes a little time to get the seeds out — just a few minutes, if you do it properly. It’s nutritious (a good source of Vitamins C, K, folate, fibre) and refreshing.
I could use the Vitamin C right now. After 3 years of castanhas picking at the home village, I’m sitting out this harvest because a virus snuck in and took up residence in my body. I’m on my second pomegranate. Take THAT, virus!
I don’t have a long history of pomegranate consumption, come to think of it. Access to “exotic” fruit has definitely been one of the blessings of expat life here. Pomegranates aren’t native to Canada, or most of the States for that matter (they’re grown in California and Arizona these days), which means I probably avoided their import prices for most of my life. The fruit is native to Iran and my favorite Persian restaurant in Toronto is The Pomegranate, so that’s what comes to mind first when I think of pomegranates.
Here’s my earlier, random association with the pomegranate: when I lived in Australia, I learned straightaway that the Aussies referred to English people as “Poms” or “Pommies”. Aussies love their slang and they have a name for everybody, but this one I heard constantly.
Where did it come from? Since the term has been used as far back as early 20th century, the theories abound. When I asked the locals, most people said POM was an acronym for “Prisoner of Mother England” but Snopes put the kibosh on that theory. Another theory is that the English skin tone in the hot Australian sun matches the pomegranate (I never heard this at all in Australia), and the more plausible one is that pomegranate is used as rhyming slang for “immigrant” (although I didn’t hear that one, either). While it’s considered derogatory in most circles, usage of the term “Pom” has since been deemed “officially inoffensive” by the Australian Standards Board in 2006, allowing advertisers to use the word during cricket, a sport where the exchange between English and Australians gets very heated.
So there you have it. Pomegranates: good for you, except if you get called one…
October 29, 2016
Album: Portugal [Autumn 2016]