Stamp of the Day: Pomegranate

Pomegranate (granatäpple in Swedish, Punica granatum in Latin) is a wonderful fruit.  It has hard seeds surrounded by fleshy, bloodred juicy arils, nested inside a labyrinth of white placental flesh (it is actually called that, botanically). Nobody really knows where it grows wild, maybe on the tiny island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, but it has been cultivated and eaten by humans for thousands of years.  We open the fruit, squeeze out the seeds over a bowl (so you don't get red juice all over you and your kitchen), and then put the seeds in salads.  For Christmas Day dinner we are having a turkey, served with balsamic-pomegranate glazed carrots.  Those carrots are to die for....   In case you didn't know it, the apple in the Paradise in the Bible most likely was supposed to be a pomegranate, but when they translated it into English for the northerners, nobody knew that fruit up in the cold north, so it became apple instead.