How To: Core Pomegranate – Style

Eve and the apple – the biblical motif of the Fall of Man has inspired artists over the millennia. The apple is still a metaphor for seduction and sin. A bitten specimen has even managed to be used worldwide as a logo for a technology group.

Nevertheless, the worm is in the apple. Science is largely in agreement that the fruit that Eva plucked from the tree of knowledge despite a strict ban could not have been a Boskop, Elstar or Gravensteiner, but only a pomegranate, also known as the apple of paradise. It’s also much more plausible, because if you wanted to locate the biblical paradise, then probably more in the Orient.

For example, the historian David Rohl from the University of Oxford went in search of the biblical Garden of Eden. Using clues in Scripture – for example the four rivers mentioned in Genesis – he concluded that Paradise must have been located in north-western Iran. But whether in Iran, on the Jordan or in Mesopotamia: the apple we know does not thrive in these latitudes, it needs a moderate climate and a lot of moisture. The pomegranate, on the other hand, needs sun and heat and can withstand longer dry spells. The gardens of the Orient and the Mediterranean countries would be unimaginable without it.

But now it gets tricky: How did Eva manage to taste this fruit? Simply biting into the hard, leathery shell is out of the question. In fact, one would literally grind one’s teeth out trying to get hold of the deep red, juicy and delicate pomegranate seeds. And many a kitchen resembles a battlefield after the first attempt to get to the kernels: the blood-red juice splashes against walls and kitchen cupboards, stains hands and clothing. Unfortunately, the stains are difficult to wash out. Only beetroot is even more colorful. It is therefore advisable to put on gloves and an apron before starting work.

After a call among Italian and German friends, techniques can be recommended: First, there is the Italian method of cutting the fruit like an orange in sectors or only in the middle all around. Then twist, pull and push the pomegranate until it breaks open. The seeds are then gently tapped out of the shell into a bowl with a wooden spoon.

What technique did Eva use?

Variant two is less elegant, but very splash and drip-proof – the Teutonic method, so to speak: Put the pomegranate in a freezer bag with a zip, close it and work it in the sink with a meat mallet, alternatively with a hammer, until the fruit bursts. Then remove the pieces of fruit and scrape out the seeds in a bowl filled with water using a spoon or ice cream scoop. Then catch the seeds in a sieve.

What technique did Eva use? All the paintings in the museums of this world give no indication of that. There are no household appliances to be seen. Did the snake know advice? However she may have done it, at least the first woman, clad in just one sheet, didn’t have to wash stains out of her clothes. And she didn’t have to whitewash the kitchen after the fall either. The hardship came later.