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Among many other of its special attractions, locals will tell you, Oman boasts arguably the best pomegranates in the world. And certainly, this is one of the oldest of cultivated fruit trees, with a venerable recorded history of at least 5,000 years. With dates, the grape, the olive and the fig, it has been lovingly cultivated in the Middle East and the Mediterranean for millennia. The heights of Jebel Akhdar, aptly the ‘Green Mountain�for the cornucopia of bountiful fruit that it produces, are the home of these concentrated health capsules. Here, the terraced villages of Wadi Bani Habib, Shuraijah and Saiq nurture their bounty �in temperatures ranging from six degrees in winter to 35 in summer, and on the deep loamy soils accompanied by hot dry summers to plump out the rich fruit, the villagers tend their main cash crop. At these high altitudes, many other deciduous fruit species impossible to grow elsewhere in Oman occur: apricots, grapes, peaches, pears, even walnuts.

The tree can grow up to eight metres high, and its glossy leaves set off the bright red flowers and later, the roughly hexagonal swelling fruit, which has a thick leathery skin that reddens as it ripens. Score the rind with a knife on four sides and twist the fruit open. Inside are the seeds, coral to ruby and garnet, covered in a juicy pulp with a sweet-tart-tangy flavour. The juice stains permanently unless you use bleach, so it’s a good idea to wear an apron or separate the seeds, or arils, under water in a basin. They will all float and can be easily separated from the bitter yellow membrane they’re embedded in. Scoop them up and drain them. You can chew handfuls up whole, or just nibble the sweet pulp off, or better still, pop them into a liquidiser and enjoy a glass of refreshing and very healthy drink of juice, either pure or blended with carrot or orange. The fruit can be stored for a long time too, as the rind hardens and seals the seeds. On Jebel Akhdar, the roads are lined in August and September with vendors selling the newly-picked fruit to buyers who come from as far as the UAE. Prices of up to 500 baisas each for the larger ones are normal, making this a time of plenty for the people who have spent months tending the trees.

Pomegranates probably originated in what’s now eastern Iran, but they’ve been with us a long time and have spread all over the world. There are only two species �the cultivated one and another on the island of Socotra off Yemen, which has a pink flower. Pomegranates belong to the huge Magnolia class of plants, and their closer relations are the rose, myrtle, guava, cloves and allspice, all of which have long and beneficial associations with human history. Their Latin name, Punica granatum, reflects the Romans�idea that the Phoenicians, the ancient people of modern Lebanon, were responsible for spreading the tree all over the Mediterranean, and it remains a culinary speciality of Lebanese cuisine today, especially in the guise of the deliciously tart rendered juice used as salad dressing and marinade, and available in local supermarkets as ‘Al Rabih Pure Pomegranate Molasses� Pomegranates are ruman in ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and Arabic, but anar in Persian and other Western Asian languages. The term ‘pomegranate�comes from the Latin words for seed apple. In many European languages, it has retained this central meaning, as in German Granatapfel, except in Portuguese, which, interestingly, still calls it roma as testimony to the long Arab presence.

Pomegranates have also been associated with divinity and royalty, not to mention fertility, probably because they contain so many red seeds, a colour which has been associated with blood and life since the dawn of our existence. The Babylonians believed chewing the seeds before battle made you invincible. The spears of the elite soldiers of old Persia, the Immortals, had pomegranates at the lower end �silver for most, gold for officers. In Greek mythology, the fruit features prominently. The Greek queen of the gods, Hera, wore a serrated crown based on the shape of the calyx of the fruit. The fruit was also the personal badge of Queen Isabella of Aragon and the Roman Emperor Maximilian, and has a long history as a national symbol in Spain. No prizes for working out that the city of Granada takes its name from the pomegranate trees it was once famous for.

The words garnet (after the deep red colour of the seeds), grenade (from the shape of the fruit, and the effect of the shrapnel-like scattering of the fruit when broken on the ground), the Caribbean island of Grenada, and the grenadine that features in some cocktails are all derived from ‘pomegranate�

Today, from Spain and Greece to Iran and China, the fruit is still a symbol of abundance, fertility and good luck. The juice is a good meat tenderiser, being rich in proteolytic enzymes. The tree can be bonsai’ed, and the bark is also a drastic purgative. The dried rind makes a natural brown dye in Persian rug production. The tree itself, especially when blooming, makes an attractive gardening subject. But the rise in popularity in recent times has been largely due to the exciting discoveries in medical research that this wonder fruit has life-enhancing properties that the ancients must have suspected all along.

So what is it exactly that makes the pomegranate so sought after in this age of new herbal cures? The health food industry is now trumpeting the fruit’s virtues. Eating one pomegranate gives you 40 per cent of your daily Vitamin C needs and a good dose of folic acid. It’s an anti-oxidant, and three times more concentrated than those favourites green tea, blueberries and strawberries, so it’s in the vanguard battling all those free radicals that age our cells by oxidation. The juice contains an impressive array of chemicals: polyphenols like ellagic and gallic acid, tannin and anthocyanin. Punicalagin is the most active of these anti-oxidants. It promotes cell replication and strengthens the cardiovascular system, a property very efficacious against atherosclerosis and heart disease. Ellagic acid has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. The juice has been used for aeons as an antiseptic on cuts. Recent research at the University of California has showed very promising results in using pomegranate juice to combat that scourge of the 21st century male, prostate cancer, and it is its cancer-inhibiting contents, especially isoflavones, that are getting most attention. Anyone on medications for hypertension taking pomegranate juice extract, however, should take care to monitor its effect, as the juice also reduces systolic blood pressure.

You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted the queen of Iranian recipes �a whole chicken buried under a mound of saffron rice sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and walnuts and drenched in pomegranate juice. And another salivating secret is out �Starbucks is launching a pomegranate frappuccino. Watch out for it, and start planning your summer escape up to the orchards of Jebel Akhdar to see the fruit first-hand. While you’re rambling along the falaj in a reverie, please don’t think that the fruit is there just for the picking, though. This seems to be a common and convenient misconception held by some summer visitors, according to the local inhabitants! True to Omani form, the passer-by will usually be generously offered some fruit as a symbol of hospitality, but it’s quite another story to help yourself.

As the English Quaker Peter Collinson wrote to his botanist friend John Bartram in Philadelphia in 1762: “Do not use the pomegranate inhospitably, a stranger that has come from so far to pay his respects to thee...Plant it against the sides of thy house... of all trees this is the most salutiferous to mankind.�People like the Greeks have taken this to heart. Even today, pomegranates grace all the rites of passage and religious festivals, from the first gift for a new home to Christmas Day, wishing fertility on a newly married couple and commemorating the dead with a special meal garnished with pomegranate seeds. May your life be as full of blessings as a pomegranate has seeds!