Pomegranate

5. Pomegranate Production and Culture Today

The pomegranate is one of the sexiest foods on earth. Its crimson shade is the colour of desire. They’re messy and sticky, and because there’s no other way to eat a pomegranate than with your fingers, the act of consuming the juicy little seeds becomes a sensuous act of play.

Amy Reiley, named Master of Gastronomy by Le Cordon Bleu

Today’s centres of the pomegranate industry are Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, India, Israel, Spain and the United States, with its Californian plantations becoming increasingly significant on the world stage. Spain remains the only major producer of pomegranates for commercial export in the European Union. India exports heavily to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the UK. The fruit holds a symbolic significance in the local economies of many Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries, as well as the Mediterranean. As of 2014 Iran and India remain the world’s largest producers of the fruit. For many countries today it is the symbolic rather than the economic value of the pomegranate that has resulted in it becoming such a source of national pride. This is epitomized in Mexico, where the traditional dish chiles en nagoda recreates the colours of the national flag. The green is rendered with chilli, the white with nut sauce and the red with pomegranate arils.

America and the Western Pomegranate Industry

The pomegranate arrived in the New World via Spanish missionaries. When Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs in the sixteenth century, pomegranate trees, the symbol of Spain, were planted in Mexico as a marker of the conquest. Spanish settlers later introduced the fruit to Texas, California and Arizona in the eighteenth century. Peter Collinson wrote of his high esteem for the fruit to his Philadelphian botanist friend John Bartram in 1762:

Don’t use the Pomegranate inhospitably, a stranger that has come so far to pay his respects to thee. Don’t turn him adrift in the wide world; but plant it against the side of thy house, nail it close to the wall. In this manner it thrives wonderfully with us, and flowers beautifully, and bears fruit … of all trees this is most salutiferous to mankind.[1]

By 1771 even Thomas Jefferson had planted pomegranates at Monticello, his plantation in Virginia. Pomegranate-shaped beads are found on the distinctive Native American ‘squash blossom’ necklace design associated with the Navajo tribe. These were first made in the nineteenth century by Navajo silversmiths who learnt this art from the Spanish. The turquoise and silver beads in the necklace (round with a calyx), which have been misidentified as squash blossoms, were in fact adapted from the trouser and shirt buttons worn by the Spanish, which were in the form of their national motif, the Granadian pomegranate.

Today the best known cultivar of pomegranate, the ‘Wonderful’ variety, originates from California, where it was first propagated in 1896 from a cutting brought west from Florida. The ‘Wonderful’ is known for its juiciness and sweetness. It is fairly resistant to rind cracking, the blight of the pomegranate industry. Especially after it rains, ripe pomegranates have a habit of cracking open and turning almost inside out. In nature, this splitting of the fruit is a biological device allowing for seeds to distribute themselves.

Despite the pomegranate’s appearance early in America’s history, the fruit remained an oddity in the U.S. until recently, an exotic food item enjoyed mainly by immigrants and Americans who discovered it abroad. The debut of the Pom Wonderful juice company in 2002 (with their successful, if not sometimes misleading, advertising campaign promoting the fruit), and the publication of research that showed the high antioxidant, dietary fibre and vitamin value of pomegranate, as well as its potential anti-carcinogenic properties, have resulted in the fruit becoming available to a much wider Western audience. Studies done recently even showed that microbicides obtained from pomegranate juice are effective against HIV, preventing the entrance of the virus into the body. The fruit has the capability to absorb radiation and has been used in cancer research. The pomegranate received the hallowed ‘super-food’ status in an article published in Men’s Health in 2008, and suddenly demand for it escalated. It is now commonly found in sauces, soft drinks (sodas), ice creams, cakes, teas, chewing gum, jellies, chocolates, salad dressings, liqueurs and the famous syrup grenadine, produced from the fruit for use in drinks.[2] Many brands have experimented with the release of limited-edition pomegranate-flavoured varieties of their product: pomegranate-flavoured liquorice produced by Darrell Lea confectioners, Häagen-Dazs’s pomegranate ice cream, pomegranate-flavoured 7UP. Pomegranate-flavoured snack products have occasionally come under criticism, as the companies that create them tend to stress the high antioxidant and nutritional value of the pomegranate in their marketing campaigns despite fizzy drinks and sweets not being health foods.

The cosmetic industry has also begun to produce an increasing number of pomegranate-based soaps and body creams, the fruit being known for its sun-protection, anti-ageing, hydration and anti-inflammatory properties. A company devoted entirely to pomegranate skincare products, Pomega5, was established in California in 2005. The fruit retains its ancient connotations of sensuality in the modern market, pomegranate-flavoured personal lubricant being available from several companies (with charming brand names like ‘Wet’ and ‘Sliquid’). Notable designers Jo Malone and Marc Jacobs have even produced pomegranate-scented lines of their fragrances. The desire for pomegranate flavouring has thus resulted in a large and growing market, which often cannot meet demand, for juice concentrate. Sixteen thousand acres of pomegranate plantation currently exist in California, but with the American pomegranate industry steadily on the rise, acreage is anticipated to increase considerably in coming years. The annual fresh harvest for the area currently yields about U.S.$60 million worth of fruit. Today the U.S. leads the world in increasing consumption of the fruit per capita: in 2002 Americans consumed ten times as many pomegranates annually as they did two years earlier in 2000. The USDA Agricultural Research Service at Davis, California, has a programme of distributing free cuttings of an assortment of cultivars to members of the general public interested in trying to grow their own pomegranate plant.[3] They hold tasting events in which different pomegranate varieties are ranked on their flavour.

The Afghani Pomegranate Industry

Another country with a developing pomegranate industry, this time in the East, is Afghanistan. Recent war and political turmoil in the country have greatly disrupted this industry and had a serious impact on exportation of the fruit to an international audience. However, 2008 saw the beginnings of a re-emergence of the pomegranate industry in Afghanistan. In 2008 Afghanistan hosted its first international pomegranate fair in the hope that its farmers would become more renowned for producing the fruit than for opium poppy production. The fair has since become an annual event. Loren Stoddard of the American agency for international development U.S. Aid, which sponsored the fair, said that ‘We want one product that could be the symbol of the new Afghanistan that will lead onto other products.’ As part of the 2008 fair a tribal meeting covering the entire Nangarhar Province was called, with two hundred elders who agreed to finish poppy cultivation and switch to growing pomegranates. The tribal elders conducted a symbolic ceremony in a farmer’s field, which they cleared of opium poppies, planting the first pomegranate tree saplings in their place. The year 2008 also saw increasing international demand, which resulted in the local market prices rising from 55 U.S. cents a kilogram to $1.60 a kilogram within a twelve-month period. The 2010 Afghan-Pak Trade and Transit Agreement has assisted the exportation of the pomegranate to its major buyers, permitting Afghan traders to export local agriculture produce to Indian and Pakistani markets via the Wagah border post. Of his country’s fruit, the Afghani agricultural minister Mohammed Asif Rahini believes, ‘there are other countries producing pomegranates but no other country can compete with ours and it’s God’s blessing that we have this quality.’[4] The country now exports up to 80,000 tons of the fruit a year. The extent to which the pomegranate has come to symbolize this region of the world today has resulted in the fruit lending its name to the Middle Eastern affairs blog of the magazine The Economist.

Production Methods

Pomegranate plants generally will not grow fruit for the first three to five years, and for this to occur pruning is necessary, as fruit are produced at the tips of new growth. Pomegranate trees are capable of self-pollination, since they have a hermaphroditic flower. However, only 45 per cent of flowers on pomegranate trees that pollinate themselves will produce fruit. There is a great advantage in cross-pollinating with a second plant, as this increases fruit yield to 68 per cent.[5] Wind is not an effective carrier of pollen, as it can be with other plants, and thus one must rely on either insects (mainly bees) to spread pollen or hand-pollination. This is usually achieved by applying a brush or swab to each yellowish, pollen-covered anther of the flower. The brush is then used to transfer the pollen grains to the sticky, receptive stigma on a flower of the desired pomegranate plant. Pollinated flowers lose their petals and mature into clusters of fruit that ripen within seven months. Productive plants can yield as many as 10 tons of fruit per plantation acre.

The pomegranate generally loves heat and is at optimum production in an arid climate. Pomegranate trees are reasonably hardy, and are fairly frost-, flood-, saline- and drought-tolerant. However the fruit can still suffer as a result of these factors, which may affect the taste, increase fall-off or stunt the growth of plants. The pomegranate plant has a xylopode, an underground stem that stocks nutrients, which is able to restore the bush if it dies back after harsh environmental conditions. Some cultivars are more adaptable to environmental conditions than others, such as the ‘Agat’ variety, which is capable of thriving in the snow of Russia. The people of Uzbekistan, to prevent their pomegranates from dying during their harsh winters, pile dirt over the bushes until they are completely buried and then wait until the following spring to unearth them.[6] Other methods used in Europe to prevent pomegranates freezing include growing them in a polytunnel to keep the plants at a constant temperature. The pomegranate will grow in a variety of soil types, be they black, sandy, lime-rich or dry and rocky. It is best cultivated in alkaline soils, although those with heavy clay content may lighten fruit colour. Several insects pester plant growth, including Virachola isocrates, which has come to be known as the pomegranate butterfly. It lays egg larvae on the plant, which when hatched burrow into the fruit.

Once the pomegranate is cut (not picked, as this will damage the plant) from the tree, it will cease ripening. Each fruit, which is in fact classed as a berry (defined as a fleshy fruit that encases seeds, produced from a single ovary), can contain 200 to 1,400 seeds. Often the fruit is grown for the express purpose of drinking rather than eating the arils. The traditional method of juicing in Iran resembles making wine: the cut-open fruits are stamped on in a clay tub by a person wearing special shoes. Popular Western methods for juicing the fruit include the use of a basket press or hydraulic extraction. The juice is usually filtered before consumption, due to the high tannin content of the fruit. The fruit is sometimes fermented to make pomegranate wine.

Dr Gregory Levin

If one man truly deserves a place in the history of the pomegranate, it is the Soviet scientist Dr Gregory Levin. Levin, who is somewhat of a hero in pomegranate circles, devoted his life to the study of the fruit from the agricultural research station of Garrigala in Turkmenistan. For the forty years he was at Garrigala, from 1961 to 2001, he achieved the world’s largest pomegranate germplasm collection of 1,117 varieties. Levin went on hikes around Central Asia and the Caucasus in search of wild pomegranate varieties. Pomegranate varieties were also sent to Levin from contacts abroad, including Egypt, Algeria and the Himalayas. Levin bred the wild pomegranates in order to create new cultivars, using selection and mutation to develop desirable qualities. Frost-resistance, sweet flavour, high juice content, softness of seed and rind-cracking were particular concerns. Studies included the preservation and growth of pomegranate seeds stored in liquid nitrogen. He sent seedlings of the varieties he developed to a number of countries, including the U.S., where they are still grown today.

However, his story became one of a paradise lost. The Eden that was Garrigala started its demise with the breakdown of the Soviet Union:

When Turkmenistan became an independent country in 1991, new governmental agencies began supervising us, replacing the USSR. They changed the name of the station. The new government of Turkmenistan apparently did not need science, and in particular, punicology – the study of pomegranates. They gradually stopped financing the station.[7]

The pomegranates at Garrigala began dying from drought. For lack of a pump, workers carried water in cans from a nearby river, and even used sewage water to irrigate the fruit. In 2001 Levin was forced to immigrate to Israel. He discovered a few years later that his pomegranate plantations had been destroyed to make way for vegetables, on order of the Turkmenistan Ministry of Agriculture. Some of Levin’s pomegranate cultivars were grown in his new home of Israel, where the water-saving technique of covering the plants in nets to reduce evaporation was utilized. But visiting the Israeli plantation in 2003 was not a positive experience for him. The pomegranate varieties that he developed, which were producing fruit with positive qualities, had been re-identified with numbers rather than the names he had given them. This limited researchers abroad, particularly in the United States, from having access to propagate the desirable pomegranate cultivars that Levin had written about.[8] Today Levin voices his concern for the depleting numbers of wild pomegranates that are becoming endangered due to human pressures, stating that we must

preserve the biodiversity of the pomegranate. Cultivated varieties of pomegranate are artefacts, creations of civilization and evidence of a very long, incredible history, the way a Rafael [sic] or a Brueghel painting or a Bach fugue is an artefact to protect and preserve for the future.[9]

Nurse Pomegranate

In his memoirs, Levin wrote of the pomegranate’s use as a health tonic in his homeland. Pomegranate juice was administered to astronauts, miners, submariners and pilots in the USSR to sustain workers. Even the intergalactic research monkeys on Soviet satellites were fed a mixture of pomegranate and rosehips to maintain their health.[10] We have seen that the pomegranate has been valued for its high vitamin content and medicinal traits from ancient times, and the restorative quality of the fruit in myth and legend has considerably influenced the perceptions that surround the pomegranate in medicine (and probably vice versa). Folk medicines hold the pomegranate in reverence as a form of treatment and prevention for a wide range of ailments; it is thought to accelerate wound healing as well as lessen pain and inflammation, and to help with diabetes, headaches, jaundice, cardiovascular disease, nausea, weight management, nosebleeds, asthma, gingivitis, ulcers, haemorrhoids, depression and respiratory infections, to name just a few. Certain properties are specific to particular pomegranate varieties. For example the Kara-Nar, a black fruit, is used to treat dysentery and vitiligo. In traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine the pomegranate is a recommended food, its sour-sweetness establishing balance in the bodies of people who are ruled by the hot and fiery Pitta dosha type. It is commonly used in Indian cuisine in the form of medicinal Anardana powder, made from dried and ground pomegranate seeds. Ayurveda utilizes the fruit as a treatment for numerous conditions, such as using pomegranate juice eye drops to prevent cataracts. Not all research in the medicinal effects of the pomegranate has been positive, however, as consumption of the fruit is also known to interfere with certain pharmaceutical drugs.

One controversial use in folk medicine that has sparked scientific experimentation and much spilling of ink is that of the pomegranate’s application as a contraceptive and abortifacient. Both taken orally and applied directly on the vagina, the pomegranate is said to trigger contractions in the uterus. One scientific study from the 1970s attempted to demonstrate this in animals.[11] Female rats, fed pomegranate, had a 72 per cent decline in fertility rates, while guinea-pig subjects had a 100 per cent reduction. A forty-day withdrawal from pomegranate consumption saw the fertility of both species restored to normal. A 2003 report from Chhattisgarh, India, notes the use of pomegranate for birth control.[12] The seeds of the fruit are ground into a powder and mixed with sesame oil, then placed in the vagina at the end of the menstrual cycle. Such a vaginal suppository has been known as far back as ancient Mesopotamian times, as demonstrated by an Assyrian cuneiform text that refers to the soaking of wool in pomegranate for placement inside a woman.[13] The pharmacological historian John M. Riddle argues that the pomegranate’s ancient use in birth control supports the idea that the pomegranate is the fruit of the biblical tree of knowledge.[14] God’s displeasure over the eating of the fruit was due to its contraceptive ability. Riddle believes that the pomegranate likewise became a symbol of the Mesopotamian sex goddess Inanna/Ishtar for its ability to control fertility, being utilized by her sacred temple prostitutes (offering sex as a conduit to the divine) so they could avoid pregnancy. The pomegranate’s ability to control fertility is attributed to its high concentration of the female sex hormone oestrogen, which today is used in the manufacture of pharmaceutical contraceptive pills. This whole idea suggests that the enduring symbol of the pomegranate, with its abundance of seeds, as the benevolent provider of fertility is a front for the fruit’s darker nature as one that reverses fertility. Research in this area is far from conclusive, however: some prenatal specialists advise that pregnant women avoid pomegranate consumption, while others suggest it is beneficial to the developing foetus and may prevent pregnancy complications like eclampsia.

Chinese vase with modelled pomegranate around the neck, 18th century.

Pomegranate in Asia: Japan and China

The pomegranate arrived in China in the second century BC, via the Silk Road. In ancient Chinese poetry, it is not the fruit but the pomegranate flower that is the image of beauty. Many poets compare the flower to a skirt, as Wan Ch’u of the eighth century AD does: ‘Her eyebrow paint eclipses daylily hues; The red skirt causes pomegranate flowers to die from envy.’[15] The type of pomegranate grown in China is mainly a yellow-skinned variety. Yellow is an important colour in Chinese culture, and is considered the most beautiful, being symbolic of the earth, luck and royalty. Thus the Chinese consider the pomegranate one of the three blessed fruits, the others being the citron and the peach. The numerous seeds within the pomegranate are said to symbolize the good fortune of having many male offspring, as the Chinese word for the pomegranate seed, zi, is also the word for sons. It has become associated with weddings, arils sometimes being scattered on the bedcovers of the bride and groom to guarantee conception. In traditional Chinese medicine, pomegranate is regarded as a yin tonic that cools and hydrates the body. A dessert of Thai origin that enjoys popularity all over Asia is known as mock pomegranate. It is made by boiling pieces of Chinese water chestnut covered in tapioca flour and red food colouring, and serving these in a dish of shaved ice, rose syrup and evaporated milk. The red chestnut pieces look just like arils, giving the dessert its name.

In Japan, the pomegranate, which is known as zakuro, does not have much of a role in national cuisine. Although it is enjoyed in the form of zakuro-shu, pomegranate seeds soaked in liquor, the main significance of the fruit in Japan falls in the religious sphere. The pomegranate is associated with Kishibojin, a goddess of children and motherhood. In Japanese iconography, Kishibojin is usually shown suckling an infant while holding a pomegranate in her right hand. Pomegranate imagery adorns the temples of this goddess, who is worshipped by women who are trying to have children. People leave wooden house-shaped plaques with pomegranates painted on them, known as ema, at shrines for the goddess. Mythology, however, tells us that Kishibojin was not always benevolent. She was initially a violent Hindu she-demon known as Hariti who lived on the flesh of children. She is said to have been converted and cured of her child-eating habits by the Buddha, who taught her to redirect her bloodlust by eating the crunchy and bloody seeds of the pomegranate. Another divine figure, Kujaku Myoo, likewise holds a pomegranate as his attribute. He protects individuals from both physical and spiritual poisoning, using his pomegranate to repel evil spirits. Pomegranates often feature in Japanese woodblock prints and also as netsuke, miniature ivory or wooden sculptures that act as fasteners for pouches, hung from the waist by a cord. Notable are the Japanese woodblock artist Ohara Shoson’s (1877–1945) two prints, both of which feature the motif of a cheeky cockatoo sitting on a branch of a pomegranate tree, some of the fruit of which have split open, exposing their seeds.

Kujaku Myoo holds a pomegranate across his chest in this 12th-century hanging scroll.

Ohara Shoson, Cockatoo and Pomegranate, 1927.

Another Buddhist tale uses the pomegranate to teach an important lesson. This story begins by noting that the Buddha constantly carries a small drum with him that he claims will be played on the day a person comes to him with the greatest sacrifice of all. A rich maharaja, keen to earn such a boasting right, comes to the Buddha, offering him a vast treasure. The Buddha does not sound his drum. An old beggar woman then approaches and offers him a single pomegranate. The Buddha takes the fruit and without delay begins playing the little drum. The maharaja is angered by this, to which the Buddha replies:

It is natural for a Maharaja to offer gold. But what great sacrifice is made when a hungry old women offers the pomegranate fruit to the Guru despite her hunger. She did not care even for her life and gave the fruit. What greater sacrifice can there be? It is not sacrifice to offer what is superfluous for you. True sacrifice means giving up that which is most dear to you, that which you value most.[16]

The inner plentifulness of the fruit exceeds the outer grandeur of material wealth.

Celebrating the Pomegranate

Various peoples in modern times have honoured the pomegranate in festivals. One such group are the people of Azerbaijan, who hold an annual pomegranate fair in the town of Goychay. The pomegranate festival takes place every October, combining local cuisine featuring the pomegranate with traditional Azerbaijani music and dance. A favourite dish is nasharab, a savoury sauce made of pomegranate that is usually served with fish. The festival typically features competitions, such as a prize for the largest pomegranate, a pomegranate costume contest and a timed pomegranate eating/squeezing contest. The extent to which the pomegranate is linked with Azerbaijani identity was demonstrated by its use in the official logo for the 2015 European Games, held in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. Designed by Adam Yunisov, the logo brings together five elements of the host country’s culture: water, fire, a carpet and the legendary Simurg bird are all enclosed within the shape of a pomegranate. Trees covered in pomegranates feature prominently in the decorative programme of the eighteenth-century Azerbaijani Palace of Shaki Khans. In honour of the special place of the pomegranate in the hearts of the Azerbaijani people, a large novelty pomegranate has been built in Goychay. There are many other instances of pomegranate-shaped sculptural monuments around the world. A huge gold bowl stacked with a pyramid of red pomegranates features in Shahrdari Square in Saveh, Iran. Another example of the fruit used in architecture is a huge mosaic pomegranate by the artist Ruslan Sergeev, which is on public display in Jerusalem. The mosaic medium, using hundreds of tile shards affixed to the outer skin of the fruit, effectively evokes the idea of plenty that is normally associated with the multitudinous internal seeds.

Pomegranate tree illustration inside Azerbaijan’s Shaki Khans Palace.

Tehran likewise celebrates its ‘ruby from paradise’ in festivities. Pomegranate producers from around Iran congregate at a festival allowing for the tasting and exchange of a variety of cultivars. Works of art featuring the pomegranate are put on display, and dances incorporating the fruit are performed. The 2011 ceremony featured the world’s largest pomegranate cake, decorated with representations of the fruit and weighing 800 kg (1,764 lb). An Iranian postal stamp decorated with the fruit was also released for the event. Wish trees feature at the festival, to which are attached pomegranate ornaments. From these hang scrolls containing lines of Hafiz’s poetry, which pose a solution to a problem faced by an individual. This classical Persian poet of the fourteenth century once wrote that ‘when love mocks, ruby tears fall heavy as pomegranates.’ The beloved Persian poet Rumi likewise praised the pomegranate in the thirteenth century, advising that ‘If you buy a pomegranate, buy one whose ripeness has caused it to be cleft open with a seed-revealing smile … through its wide-open mouth it shows its heart, like a pearl in the jewel box of spirit.’[17]

Celebrations at the 2011 pomegranate festival in Goychay, Azerbaijan.

Mosaic pomegranate by Ruslan Sergeev, Jerusalem.

Pomegranate sculpture in Shahrdari Square, Saveh, Iran.

Another notable festival in celebration of the fruit occurs in the ‘Heart of Pomegranate Country’, Madera, California. As well as cooking demonstrations, a highlight of the fair is a competition known as the ‘Pomegranate Grenade Launch’ which involves firing pomegranates at targets from a large slingshot. Skydivers perform an airshow in which they hold pomegranates while parachuting into the event, which is held at the Madera airport in November. In 2013 the event was advertised in a humorous YouTube video featuring the mayor of Madera rapping to a parody cover of Macklemore’s 2013 song ‘Thrift Shop’.

Pop Culture

There are several references to the pomegranate in popular culture, an appropriate prelude leading us into our next chapter on the fruit in art. This list is continually growing as more people are inspired by the unusual nature of the pomegranate.

Pop singer Katy Perry uses a pomegranate as lipstick in the music video for her song ‘Roar’. Adam Lambert’s music video for the song ‘Better than I Know Myself’ features the musician crushing a pomegranate, causing the blood-like juice to spew from his hands. The pomegranate syrup grenadine is paid homage to in Lana del Rey’s song ‘Bel Air’, and the character Michael Scott in the American TV show The Office claims straight grenadine as his drink. Anne Baxter as Nefertiri in the 1956 film version of The Ten Commandments attempts to seduce Moses, describing her own lips as ‘moist and red like a pomegranate’ in contrast to his wife’s lips, which are ‘chafed and dry as the desert sand’. The comedy film Her Alibi (1989) features a struggling mystery novelist who writes the lines ‘Her breasts squashed against him like ripe pomegranates,’ creating a sensual scene using the same kind of phraseology that we have seen in Arabic folklore.

The pomegranate has even impacted the everyday lexicon. The French word for pomegranate, grenade, was given to the hand-tossed explosive weapon, evoking the seed-scattering properties of our favourite fruit. The red seeds reflect the destructive blood-spilling caused by weaponry and war. The slang term ‘pom’ or ‘pommy’, used by Australians and New Zealanders to describe the British, is a contraction of pomegranate, and refers to the speedy reddening of the skin caused by sun exposure that occurs in people of English origin.[18] The term may alternatively have developed from the use of the word ‘pomegranate’ as Australian rhyming slang for ‘immigrant’.

The pomegranate features in the artwork of two cards from the Rider-Waite tarot deck, first published in 1910 and still the most popular deck available one hundred years later. In the High Priestess card a woman stands in front of a curtain that is covered in pomegranates in reference to the fact that she is seated inside Solomon’s Temple, marked by the columns featuring the letters B and J. These are the pillars Boaz and Jachin (here representing light and dark), which, as discussed in Chapter Three, were also noted in the Bible to have been encrusted with pomegranates. The Empress card features a woman reclining amid a field of grain, wearing a robe embroidered in a repeated pomegranate motif. Both these cards use the pomegranate to evoke a scene of fertility. Like the fruit, the presence of a High Priestess in a reading concerns mystery and the divine, while the Empress is associated with sex, motherhood and growth.

The image of plentifulness that the pomegranate evokes is satirized in an amusing hoax advertisement for the all-in-one device the Pomegranate NS08 mobile phone. Launched in 2008, the website www.pomegranatephone.com claims that the ruby-red phone features a variety of inbuilt properties including a video projector, live voice translator, harmonica, coffee maker and razor. The website states that the phone has a battery the size and shape of a pomegranate aril that has the capacity to keep the phone running for five days. While exploring the features advertised, one is soon redirected to an information page about the region of Nova Scotia. The whole website is an elaborate advertisement, not for a new phone, but for tourism in the Canadian province (where ‘you can get everything you want in one place’). Although the advert features the fruit rolling around and the seeds splattering, Nova Scotia does not in fact have a pomegranate industry of its own. Elsewhere, in real electronics, the pomegranate has inspired researchers at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the development of a new lithium ion battery that holds a cluster of tiny silicon particles in a hard carbon rind, in replication of arils in the fruit.

Morris & Co., bird and pomegranate wallpaper, 1926.