[Sca-cooks] Italian Arabic recipes, was Anonymous Tuscan Cookbook

Terry Decker t.d.decker at att.net
Fri Jun 28 21:33:37 PDT 2013



> Glenn wrote:
>> So sweet and sour pomegranates are separate varieties, or just ripe and 
>> less ripe?
>
> Arabic language recipes often distinguish between them. Some recipes would 
> call for a certain number of one kind and a different number of the other. 
> And from other stuff i've read, i would say they were different varieties.
>
> I guess we just make do with what we have, which, i'm guessing, is usually 
> the sweet kind.
>
> Urtatim

"Pomegranate trees grow there without any ordering or cultivation, 
especially in the Province of Kilan, where you have whole forests of them. 
The wild pomegranates, which you find almost everywhere, espe3cially at 
Karabag, are sharp or sowrish.  They take out of them the seed, which they 
call Nardan, wherewith the drive a great trade, and the Persians make use of 
them in their sawses, whereto it gives a color and a picquant taste, having 
been steep'd in water and strain'd through a cloath."

Olearius on the Persian use of pomegranates, 1669.

There are roughly 500 cultivars of Punica granatum.  Cultivated pomegranates 
tend to be sweet and juicier than their wild counterparts.

Bear 




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