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/.
Foto Friday – Apples & Honey
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Holidays
One of the more lovely traditions of Rosh Hashana is eating apples dipped honey to symbolize our hopes for a sweet new year. At this season, you start seeing apples and honey everywhere. Body artist Flora certainly does…
Dorit “Dot” Malin, a talented architectural and stage lighting designer, created this lovely image incorporating dance and light.
Israel’s Fruit Production and Marketing Board has chosen to market apples the old-fashioned way…
And there are a slew of apple-themed New Year’s animations on YouTube! A small selection follows. Enjoy! And a healthy, happy and prosperous Shana Tova to all.
Picking apples for New Year at Kibbutz Malkiya
Apples and Honey
Shana Tova – the Apple’s Perspective
Shana Tova – Another Apple
From ‘Fish to Akko’ to ‘Lychees to China’
The old English expression, “selling coals to Newcastle,” has its counterpart in the U.S. – “selling ice to Eskimos” – and in Jewish tradition, with the Talmud talking about “selling fish to Akko (Acre).” In each case, the idea is that it would be fo
olhardy to try and sell a commodity that already exists in the locale mentioned.
To that list we can add a modern day Israeli equivalent: “Selling lychees to China.” The lychee, that Far Eastern treat known to most Westerners as a dessert choice in Chinese restaurants, thrives in Israel – and thanks to Israeli agricultural technology, China has been able to improve its own lychee crop!
Lychees are grown in Israel at a number of kibbutzim and moshavim in the north, and in the Jordan Valley. There are at least two major Israeli contributions to the science of growing lychees that I am aware of: A patent by Dr. Israel Moran (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6093433.html), for “an improved process for preserving the product quality of lychee fruit,” and the work of Dr. Raphael Stern of Kibbuz Lavie (where we spent a recent Shabbat, the inspiration for this post), who determined the role of water management in the size and quality of the fruit.
Dr. Stern’s methods have been applied in other lychee -growing centers, including Florida, Spain, South Africa – and China, where he was specifically invited to help improve the lychee crop, in a country where the fruit has been grown commercially for hundreds of years. Talk about Israeli “chutzpah” – outshining the country that’s supposed to be the world leader in everything lychee! Luckily for lychee farmers in China, their government hasn’t stood on ceremony – and has gladly invited Israeli expertise to improve their crop of the fruit.
Olive you
Despite the historical connotation of the olive branch, olive harvesting season is often not a period of peace here. Clashes between Palestinian olive farmers and settlers in the West Bank regularly mar the olive harvest, and according to Israeli security sources, the situation is worsening.
However, my own personal olive harvest is going just fine, thanks. When we moved into our current home, we inherited a healthy olive tree that produces more and more green olives every year. It’s one of the few objects of vegetation in our yard we haven’t managed to kill.
Only problem is, even though I love olive oil, I hate olives. Fortunately the rest of my family is more Mediterranean oriented, and they love the little critters.
So for a week in October, they turn into people of the earth and climb the tree to fill bucket after bucket of the hard olives.
Once in a while, just like the Wilderness family, my wife will bottle the olives herself, with a precise recipe involving garlic, lemon vinegar and other tangy ingredients.
But she’s never been so happy with the results, saying the olives in the supermarket deli are tastier. So usually, we give away the olives that have been picked to anyone who wants them – neighbors, friends – we even stop people on the street asking them to please take these olives off our hands.
So, for at least one family, olive harvest season is still about holding forth the olive branch.
(Photo courtesy of Matan Brinn)
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