The Pomegranate Challenge - Black and White Team

... the race begins ...

David is not unlike other 7 year old children – he loves the familiar foods and the unfamiliar foods may take up to 17 presentations until he figures out whether he likes that food or not. The challenge at our house is to figure out how to make those offerings to him interesting. So today we decided to have two teams – a white team and a black team in a contest – to see who could open their pomegranate first and present it on either a white dish or a black dish, depending on the name of their team.

... the arils drop to the bottom of the water ...
... the membranes float to the top ...
... Arta is alone as her team member
has abandoned her to
the greater good of taking pictures ...

David shouted the word go and his team (Pouria and David) began to score the skin and finger the arils out of each section. They had a slight advantage. Pouria’s favorite fruit is pomegranate. In Iran, Pouria’s Aunt Fatima often presents this fruit as a special treat and unfortunately for the white team (Arta and Bonnie), Pouria could remember how his aunt used to do this.

The white team, not knowing how severely they were handicapped, set the brochure in front of them and began to follow the instructions:

1. Cut 1” off top and bottom.
2. Score the skin at each section.
3. Separate the sections under water.
4. Loosen the arils in the water.
5. Scoop out the floating membrane.
6. Strain.

THE BLACK TEAM ... the clear winner ... also note the better colour ...

Results:

1. The black team had chosen the better pomegranate – a richer scarlet colour on the outside, and so the fruit inside also had that brilliant colour. They finished faster. They had a more delicious looking product. They were clearly the winners by all standards.

2. Arta, on the other hand, did not know that the pomegranate’s outer skin has rises and depressions. Thus she did not know how to “find sections” at which to score the fruit.

THE WHITE TEAM ... a close second ...

3. Arta was slowed down by having to scoop out the floating membrane with her hand (though the brochure suggested doing it with a spoon -- which she thought would be even slower). She also lost time by having to pour the arils and water through a strainer so that she could separate them and then present the arils on her white plate.

The black team was ecstatic with their victory.

Arta