Foto Friday – Miraculous Pomegranates
Filed under: design, Environment, Food, Foto Friday, General, health, History and Culture, Holidays, Medical Breakthroughs, Picture of the Week, Religion, Technology
It was at about 9:30 last night when I spilled the pomegranate seeds on the floor. While picking them up, one by one, I reflected first on the story of Demeter and Persephone, then on the fact that some Jewish schoolchildren are taught that there are 365 seeds in a pomegranate (the number of days in the year) while others are taught that there are 613 (the number of mitzvot or good deeds), and finally (it took some time collect them all) about the long-standing Jewish relationship with the pomegranate as a symbol of fertility and plenty. Well, it has a lot of seeds so you can see why that might be.
© Пётр Рогов
It’s hard to say where Judaism’s connection to this beautiful and fascinating fruit begins; some scholars believe is was the pomegranate, not the apple, that got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden. It is mentioned often in the Bible both as a fruitand as a symbol and is one with the Seven Species celebrated at Sukkot.
© RomKri
What is for certain is that the pomegranate has been in this region for thousands of years. According to the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) site, “The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times.” The pomegranate features prominently in this mosaic fruit basket from the Nabatean city of Mamshit.
Photo: Pikiwiki
Also from CRFG: “The pomegranate widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa, and was introduced into California by Spanish settlers in 1769.” In those days, pomegranates and their juice were valued as much for their medicinal properties as for their beauty, but in modern times they were for decades nothing more than a martini mixer or an exotic decorative item.
Photo: Pikiwiki
And then researchers like Dr. Ephraim Lansky, co-founder of Israel’s Rimonest came along, with proof — as reported by ISRAEL21c — of the pomegranate’s high anti-oxidant activity: “the stuff of potential anti-cancer therapies”.
Israel wasn’t the first country to produce pomegranates for commercial export but — as always — is an innovator. Israel was first, for example to give pomegranate juice an upgrade via wineries such as Azarad and Rimon, which produce varieties such as dessert wine, port style wine and dry wine, all the while touting the fruit’s antioxidant properties.
The rise in global interest for all things Punica granatum has resulted Israel’s doubling its pomegranate growing capacity, and the establishment of companies like Pomeg-Tech that provide expertise to those wishing to get into the pomegranate growing game. Here, in case you’ve never seen it, is a picture of the fruit’s flower:
Photo: Lior Almagor, Frommycamera.com
And Israeli pomegranate innovations don’t stop there: Shoham, inventors of a new gadget, the ART – Arils Removal Tool (that’s a pomegranate seed plucker to you and me), were recently awarded the 2010 Innovation Award at Fruit Logistica Berlin, one of the major events in the fresh produce industry. Here’s a picture of the happy Shoham team. An instructional video can be found on their website – and while it can’t prevent you from dropping the finished product on the floor, I can vouch that the ART actually does the job.
Foto Friday – AgroMashov’s Fruits & Veggies
Filed under: Business, Foto Friday, General, health, Technology
For 20 years now, the AgroMashov exhibition at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds has been the place for Israel’s farmers to unveil the new and different breeds of fruits and vegetables that are Israel’s agricultural calling card. Since the 1970s, Israel’s agricultural export policy has been increasingly geared towards the out-of-season, the colorful, the exotic and the just plain weird lookin’… but tasty.
According to an essay on Israel’s agricultural sector, “Growing vegetables has become an art in Israel – based on choosing the right hybrid varieties, fertilizers and irrigation methods, selecting greenhouse covers designed for specific crops and employing innovative growing tools, harvest equipment and post-harvest treatments. In recent years farmers have also been seeking profitable market niches. Examples are a big increase in production of organic produce, as well as specialties like herbs and selected mushrooms.”
At this year’s AgroMashov — which runs from January 13-14 — you can get a first peek at Gac (above center and below*), a Southeast Asian fruit that looks like a spiky orange and is known for its medicinal and nutritional properties.
And then there are the ones that come in different colors but taste about the same, like these multicolored carrots and cauliflowers!
More information about AgroMashov is available on their website , more about Israel’s agricultural innovations can be found on ISRAEL21c, and you may enjoy this video, too.
*Gac interior image courtesy of Jennifer J. Maiser and http://www.lifebeginsat30.com/.
CNN scents ISRAEL21c flower story
CNN World Report this week broadcast Molly Livingstone’s excellent piece for ISRAEL21c on floral scent research at Hebrew University.
The Jurassic Park of seeds
Filed under: Environment, Food, General, Technology
Israeli agrotech experts like to break the bounds of science every now and then – well actually pretty frequently. So it should come as no surprise that a team of Israeli researchers has now resurrected a 2,000-year-old date tree by using a seed excavated from Masada.
What a fun project this must have been.
Apparently the seed was one of three discovered at the ancient Jewish fortress in the 1960s and was radiocarbon-dated to the 1st century BCE – AD73 to be exact – around the time the Romans laid siege to Masada.
Three years ago, a team from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies bathed the seeds in fertilizer and enzyme-rich solutions and then planted them.
Lo and behold, about four weeks later one of the seeds sprouted, making it the oldest germinated seed in the world. Today’s it’s a four-foot tall Judean palm sapling called Methuselah –named by the scientists after the oldest person in the Hebrew bible.
The main researcher, Elaine Solowey – who was featured on ISRAEL21c some months ago and specializes in reviving extinct plants, said: “I really never thought we would get life out of this group of seeds because when we first acquired them, they looked so dry. Most of the seeds were dead and then suddenly, we saw that we could get life out of this one.”
According to the scientists this region was once covered in thick forests of Judean palms reaching up top 80 feet high, but they have all become extinct. Methuselah is the only living Judean date palm in the world.
The researchers hope that by reviving the plant they can study its medicinal uses. It’s also got quite a bit of history behind it – researchers believe the seeds were most likely the remnants of fruits stored or eaten by the Zealot Jewish community living in Masada at that time.
Perhaps I watch too much Sci-Fi. Although I think this is absolutely fascinating, there’s also part of me that finds it faintly scary.
A resurrected seed… what comes next?
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