Pom-wonderfulness

This afternoon I walked into the kitchen and lo and behold! there on the counter, in all its late-afternoon-autumn-light splendor,  lounged one of the biggest pomegranates I had ever seen.

“Okay, you pompous  pomegranate you,” I said, giving it the once-over. “Let’s see what you have to show for your 1 pound 3 1/4 ounces (I weighed it) of pom-wonderfulness.”

First, I took that paramount pomegranate outside for a photo session — every pom has its day. The pom’s fame flashed by in an instant, though, as reality hit: it was time to mine the sweet treasures from beneath the leathery pink skin. With a couple wiggles  of the knife, the lifeblood of the pomegranate began leaking onto the bread board.  Success! Breaking apart the pomegranate, the jewel-like arils fought back by staining my hands purple. Tucked tightly together in rows, the arils were stubborn to release from their  home. A deft flick of my finger showed them I was not to be stopped; Pom-wonderfulness would be had.

I tossed a few of the precious gems into my mouth and savored the pop of the tender flesh and the tart liquid dribbling through my mouth. Then I suddenly began to realize how extraordinarily noisy eating a pomegranate can actually be. Eating an apple is unquestionably noisy–they’re crunchy–but pomegranates? Yes, those sly seeds encased within the arils were the guilty culprits. Normally, noisy eating habits top my pet peeves list (yes! even the inevitable apple-crunching…), but today the pomegranate seed crunch struck me as a wonderful  sound dimension enhancing the pomegranate eating experience.

And by experience, it really is quite an ordeal, as anyone who has ever eaten a pomegranate from scratch can attest. Would I trade the arduous task for store-bought pomegranate juice, devoid of the satisfying experience of breaking apart the scarlet gems and pulling them from their case one-by-one? No. Would I trade it for the prepackaged arils available at Costco at Christmastime? Well, maybe if I was really short on time. But here lies the moral: obtain a pomegranate (beheamoth or not), slice open, appreciate the intricacy of design and relish all that pom-wonderfulness.