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Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness

Plato's Pomegranate

Walking down to the corner sidewalk fruit barrow to buy some onions, my eye was caught by a pile of ripe pomegranates. Their deep red skins were split open in their ripeness revealing the delicate membraned crimson pips, the size and innocence of baby teeth.

My mind zoomed back decades. It always does whenever I spot a pomegranate. Back to somewhere in northern India in the early seventies. We were staying, my boyfriend and I, in a little village off the beaten hippie track. I can still hear the sound of a rooster waking us at dawn. The smell of the heat. Salted cucumber wedges. And the pomegranate.

Sixteen centuries ago, Plato imagined a world of true and timeless forms, of which every earthly entity is but an imperfect instance. Thus we can envisage the true color purple - though there are many purple things on this earth, we can hold in our minds' eyes, the concept of a true color people, even though we do not know what it is.

As I crushed the seeds of that long-gone pomegranate against my teeth all those years ago, I imagined it to be THE perfect pomegranate. The colour, the smell the flavour and the perfect vibrance of its environment. That instance in time is still clear to me. It never fades. And all subsequent pomegranates I have come across in the intervening years are but a poor copy of the real thing.

Some time ago, I made the mistake of buying another pomegranate. It LOOKED perfect but the look was to prove deceptive. I hurried back to my Manhattan apartment and took it out to the balcony. I crushed the seeds against my teeth. Nothing. This was a sad attempt at a pomegranate.

I was reminded of one of my favorite writers, V. S. Naipaul in his novel "An Area of Darkness", in which he documents a year of self revelations in India. Naipaul was not born in India, but on one of the Caribbean islands. He'd always tried to picture the birthplace of his ancestors, and wanted to experience for himself that exotic India of his family's memories. He'd only been able to imagine the smell of jasmine and once in India he hastened to smell the real thing. And of course he was bitterly disappointed. In no way did the smell of jasmine come close to his imaginings. It smelt, as my New York pomegranate tasted - like nothing.

I walked back to the fruit barrow today, meaning to take a photo of the pomegranates. They'd sold out. So I tried the local supermarket. And here they are.

No, I won't be buying another pomegranate, ever. But a strange thing was about to happen. I never dawdle in supermarkets. I have no fondness of the places. But this afternoon I was drawn to another aisle, and found - "pomegranate juice". I'd never heard of it.

The Perfect Pumpkin?

It is no use looking back to old experiences that are gone forever. It is nice to have the memories, but perhaps there's a perfect example of something in Manhattan? I decided to look for something distinctly American.
What could be more American than Thanksgiving? Perhaps the nicest celebration that this country offers.
There's something really nice about fall in America. I like the way people put harvesty-looking things on their balconies and front yards - pumpkins, dried corn, red apples ...

I took a quick photo of some American pumpkins - no Queensland Blues here - but pumpkins straight out of the Donald Duck comics of my childhood. I'd never guessed they REALLY looked like this.
Pumpkins are everywhere this time of year. They start to appear a few weeks before Halloween. I don't much care for the jack 'o' lantern pumpkins with their ragged smiles and associations with witches. But the Thanksgiving pumpkins are so classic.

I don't think people actually eat these pumpkins. They are mere decoration.

And they are everywhere. Here are some in the flower-pots outside my apartment building.

When I've left this country and am 12,000 miles away in Australia, will I long for the classic orange pumpkins of America? Will they be the American version of my Indian pomegranate?

I doubt it. But then, I didn't know back then, when I was in India, crunching away on that pomegranate, that the moment would remain with me, forever.


Kate Juliff
New York
October 2005