Pomegranates

I love pomegranates. They are one of the few fruits still available only parts of the year. Grocery stores do not carry them in summer months. As a teenager I used to stuff as many seeds in my mouth as possible like a hamster storing seeds, and revel in the disgusting mess of spitting them out. 

Recently I read a book called Pomegranates: A Soviet Botanist's Exile From Eden, which discussed Dr. Gregory Levin's research of pomegranates, his quest to find rare varieties of the genus, and the destruction of his research station after the end of the Cold War. Despite losing family members to the Siege of Leningrad, and his pomegranate forest to a drought, Levin remained ever passionate about the plant.

Apparently, somewhere hiding in the mountains of Central Asia, there is a blue pomegranate, uncultivated and wild, hiding its magic from human profiteers.