Rare Produce Find: Pomegranates in Cebu

I’ve never tasted pomegranate my whole life, not until around two weeks ago when I decided to prowl the corners of Carbon Market. I usually visit Cebu’s mother of all wet markets on a Sunday afternoon. After an hour or so of going around, I always end up with a bagful of semi- fresh produce. Sunday Carbon Market visits used to be an activity that I share with my teammate for life (let's abbreviate it to TML :D ). Yet, he’s now an ocean away (I’d also like to say that he’s an airline promo fare away too ha!) but I still find myself wanting to go to Carbon despite the lack of company and personal kargador.

So going back to pomegranates, I was already about done with my purchases that afternoon. As far as I can remember, I already had camote, kalabasa, avocados, parsley, cabbage, pechay, camote tops, banana blossoms, sikwa, and turmeric in my loot bag when I spotted this produce which I thought was passion fruit. I thought to myself, “Wow, passion fruit in Carbon?!”

For a brief background on why I considered the Carbon Market as the last place I’d found passion fruit, I can say that I have only seen passion fruit thrice: first, somewhere in Busay and it wasn’t even up in a tree, it was almost rotting in the ground and the TML (who can recognize even the most obscure of Philippine fruits because he grew up in the province) identified that it was passion fruit; second, at the produce section of Metro Ayala grocery, and lastly, at the Healing Present organic bistro in Lahug.

“Passion fruit ni Manang?” I asked. The vendor simply nodded and said “Hutda nalang ng upat! Diyes na tanan." Before I could actually think about it, I handed her 10 pesos and off I went.

Surprise, surprise! It turns out that the mystery fruit is actually a... pomegranate! I posted photos of the fruit over Twitter and two of my friends (and the TML also confirmed it via email ) said that it’s locally known as granada.

Now before you actually hit Google and learn more about the benefits of pomegranate, you might want to read this article on exaggerated claims on the fruit’s health benefits. It pays to be skeptical once in a while.

And yes, I have now experience firsthand the frustration of getting the seeds out of the fruit, so make your life easier by following the tips in this post.

Happy pomegranate hunting! :)