A Different fruit!

This is it!

This was left in our fridge by our oldest daughter when she and her family had visited in early January. This was a unique fruit that neither me or my husband had ever had the privilage of eating. I had seen them in stores but never knew anything about them or how to eat them. Several weeks after they had left, I ask her on the phone, how to eat this strange fruit called a pomegranate. She exsplained to cut around it, just the shell and pull it apart.

To my surprise, this is what it looked like inside. I used the internet to find out a little more about this strange fruit, below are some of the facts I came up with.

A. If you have no patience for seeds, then this is not the fruit for you. Every pomegranate is composed of exactly 840 seeds, each surrounded by a sac of sweet-tart juice contained by a thin skin. The seeds are compacted around the core in a layer resembling honeycomb. The layers of seeds are separated by paper-thin white membranes which are bitter to the tongue. The inner membranes and rind are not generally eaten due to high tannic acid content, but they are useful as a skin wash. Many people eat the fresh fruit by chewing on the seeds to release the juice from the sacs and then swallow seeds and all. The seeds are considered good roughage to help cleanse the body. In India, the seeds are dried and ground into a powder to be used in meat dishes. Others will chew the juice from the seeds and then spit out the seeds. One method to get just the juice is to vigorously roll the fruit on a hard surface to break the juice sacs. When the fruit is soft, puncture the end, insert a straw, and suck out the juice, squeezing as you go. Obviously, there is a fair amount of waste in this process.

I loved the taste and it was also kind of fun pulling all the seed sacs from the shell. I did not count them but there were a lot. Below you can see how closly they are pressed together.

As I looked at these seeds, I couldn't help but think of lent and the many drops of blood that Jesus shed in payment for our sins. The sweet taste made me think of the wonderful sweet love that our Saviour has for us and the joy we have in His resurection.

Here you can see the spongy shell that holds all the seeds. I tasted a tiny bit of that shell and it is bitter. This reminds me of the bitterness of our sins and of the bitter job that Christ had to suffer for the sins of the world.

What a special fruit our God has created. We just enjoyed this plate full of Pomeganate seeds. Some use these in salads and there is also a very good juice on the market.

Lent is upon us! This season offers us and opportunity for penitential reflection and prepares us for the glorious good news of Easter, the resurrection of our Lord on Easter Day.

It is fitting that Valentines Day falls in the season of Lent. What better time to reflect on that great love of God!

"Greater love has no man then this, that someone lays down his life

for His friends" John 15:13

" . . . God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners

Christ died for us" Romans 5:8

"We love because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19