Plentiful pomegranate

This is how the Cambridge dictionary describes a pomegranate: "A round, thick-skinned fruit containing a mass of red seeds and a lot of juice." A mass of seeds could well be a thousand seeds as the Turkish saying goes: I bought one in the market; it turned out to be a thousand at home! The fruit is comprised of seeds, which is exactly why the pomegranate has always been the symbol of fertility and plenty in our culture.

In Anatolia and in Iran, the pomegranate fruit has a particular significance in regard to the winter solstice and the New Year. The longest night of the year is Yalda night in Iran where it is celebrated all night long with storytelling, reciting poems, telling stories and sharing memories. The roots of celebrating Yalda Night lie in Zoroastrian tradition, as the darkest night of the year was particularly inauspicious and people had to stay together to protect from evil daevas, which were like anti-gods, supernatural entities that would harm people. On this otherwise fearful night, people gathered in groups of friends and neighbors, in some cases the whole village gathered to enforce a psychological sense of unity. Today, the night is spent with the extended family, pretty much like celebrating Christmas in Christian cultures, togetherness is the essence of the long night. It is also about remembrance, the elderly talk about the old times and tell anecdotes and tales, and of course there is that shared joy of being together, endless jokes and funny stories add to the cheerful atmosphere. Endless chitchat talk is almost essential, both for entertainment and for staying awake. After a fine festive meal, everybody stays well past midnight, staying till dawn gives a sense of solidarity against combatting darkness, cementing once again the belief...