Super fruit

Pomegranates feature in the myths of many cultures. According to the Greeks, it's responsible for winter: the goddess Persephone, kidnapped by Hades and taken to his home in the underworld, eats several pomegranate seeds before being released. For each seed Persephone consumes, she is condemned to spend a month in the underworld. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, mourns for her daughter during these months, and causes everything on Earth to wilt and die.

In other cultures, the pomegranate symbolises forbidden desire, life and death, fertility and female puberty.

Although the magical values attributed to the fruit are fanciful (thank goodness, at least on the fertility part) recent studies have shown it's high in antioxidants, which are believed to possess anti-ageing properties and help prevent cancer and heart disease.

The pomegranate isn't the easiest fruit to eat - the skin is tough and leathery and the glistening, jewel-like seeds (arils) cling tightly to the coarse white interior pith. To extract them, cut off the top of the pomegranate, then cut through the tough skin along the circumference from top to bottom in two places (so it's divided into four), but don't cut all the way through the fruit. Soak it in a bowl of cool water then pry open along the cuts. Submerge in the water and turn the sections inside out: most of the seeds will pop out, and the others will loosen easily from the pith and sink to the bottom of the bowl (the pith will float). Working with the fruit submerged lessens the chances of staining: pomegranate rind was once used as an indelible dye.

Pomegranate juice is sweetened, simmered and reduced to make syrup (such as grenadine), or unsweetened and reduced for pomegranate molasses. The seeds are beautiful scattered over couscous or pilaf, or tossed with salads.