Full of Pith and Vinegar (with Kate Lebo)

Summary

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Home Cooking

Episode 25: “Full of Pith and Vinegar”

Hosts: Samin Nosrat & Hrishikesh Hirway

Guest: Kate Lebo
Date: November 7, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Home Cooking explores the world of “difficult fruit”—fruits that require special preparation, care, or patience, and the culinary opportunities and delights they bring. With special guest Kate Lebo, poet and author of The Book of Difficult Fruit, Samin and Hrishi answer listener questions about medlars, pomegranates, prickly pears, fig and citrus leaves, and more, offering recipes, stories, and techniques for making the most of nature’s more finicky offerings.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Episode Theme: Difficult Fruit (03:07–08:34)

• Hrishi surprises Samin by announcing that the episode is themed around "difficult fruit," inspired by a listener question and the work of Kate Lebo.
• The discussion frames “difficult fruits” as those that are challenging to harvest, prepare, or eat, but also rewarding and sometimes underappreciated.
• Samin shares:
  “Treating the fruit with care and love and respect should be everyone’s goal in a fruit dessert.” (06:52)

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2. Listener Questions & Expert Interlude: Medlars with Kate Lebo (10:06–17:32)

What Are Medlars? (11:30–13:15)

• Kate Lebo describes the medlar, an obscure fruit related to quince and apples, which is only edible after being “bletted,” that is, left to nearly rot and soften post-frost.
• It’s challenging to prepare and not always palatable:
  “…the first bite is sort of like a bad sparkling wine, and it’s sort of apple-saucy. And then, like, the last bite is mildew.” – Kate Lebo (12:58)

Recipes and Uses (14:38–16:56)

• Kate suggests making medlar jelly, combining bletted and less ripe medlars for both flavor and pectin, boiled and strained, then jarred with sugar and lemon “skeletons.”
  “The flavor of this is like stepping into a warm house on a cold day and getting that whiff of leaves.” – Kate Lebo (16:56)
• Other ideas: medlar paste in pastries (with chevre and quince), liqueur (modeled on nocino technique), and traditional brown sauce or chutney.
• The process is labor-intensive and yields little paste per fruit.

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3. Working with Pomegranates (21:36–31:32)

Removing Arils & Traditional Eating (23:19–24:11)

• Samin describes eating fresh pomegranate arils with salt—a Persian classic—and shares tips for decoupling seeds efficiently:
  • Score along natural divisions, break open, and extract arils in water to minimize mess.
  • “If you follow the natural veins of the fruit, you’ll see that there are actually, like, clumps of perfectly pristine seeds that you can then remove and avoid all of the white pith.” (30:23)

Pomegranate Molasses & Fesenjun Stew (25:21–26:54)

• Samin recounts making fesenjun, a Persian walnut and pomegranate molasses stew, and how her childhood food “rankings” matured as she came to appreciate its complex flavors.
• Encourages making and reducing pomegranate juice to molasses, using it in stews, drinks, or desserts.

Family Rituals with Fruit (31:05–31:40)

• The hosts reminisce about the loving gestures of parents and relatives who skillfully prepared fruit—apple peeling, corn kernel removal, pomegranate seeding.

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4. Prickly Pears, Vinegar Making, and Fruit Abundance Management (32:33–38:49)

• Caller Saurabh asks how to use an abundance of prickly pears, suggesting vinegar infusion.
• Samin validates the vinegar idea, recommending pureeing fruit, adding a “live” vinegar mother, and fermenting with care:
  “Vinegar is actually a really simple and beautiful thing to make, and it involves a lot less processing of the fruit.” (36:17)
• The discussion covers the edible challenges of prickly pears (tough seeds) and cultural approaches to eating them in Mexico and Sicily—often with less fuss and more acceptance of texture.

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5. Fig and Citrus Leaves: Culinary Fragrance and Tradition (38:53–46:39)

Fig Leaves (39:18–42:53)

• Fig leaves impart a coconutty, nutty aroma to food; Samin uses them as wrappers for grilling fish or cheese, as aromatic layers in baking, or dried, powdered, and mixed with salt as a seasoning.
• Not to be eaten directly, but prized for the flavor they impart.

Citrus Leaves (43:00–46:39)

• Inspired by Sicilian swordfish skewered with citrus twigs and leaves, Samin suggests using lime or lemon tree branches and leaves as skewers for grilling fish, halloumi, or mushrooms.
• The essential oils in the leaves add flavor distinct from juice or zest.

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6. Culinary Explorations and Ice Creams with Difficult Fruits (46:43–49:21)

• Discussion pivots to frozen desserts:
  • Prickly pear makes a great sorbet or granita.
  • Figs can be roasted and swirled into a fig leaf-infused ice cream base.
  • Pomegranate juice is best as granita or sorbet; molasses could be drizzled over top.
  • Hrishi mentions Indian ice cream brand Naturals, featuring uncommon fruit flavors, and local Bay Area ice creams using tropical fruits.
  • Samin: “We're really going down like a fruit rabbit hole.” (48:17)

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7. Insights & Philosophy: Food, Language, and Affection (49:44–50:12)

• Learning about new foods is also about learning new words, expanding vocabulary alongside palates.
• Both hosts reflect on preparing fruit as an act of love and the cultural meaning—whether through family, migration, or metaphor, as with Kate Lebo’s book.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “All fruit has the potential to be difficult fruit.” – Hrishikesh Hirway (08:49)
• “I have to fight squirrels to get [medlars] before they forage them for winter.” – Kate Lebo (13:21)
• “Even under ideal circumstances, it’s not that tasty.” – Hrishikesh Hirway, about medlars (12:55)
• “Treating the fruit with care and love and respect should be everyone’s goal in a fruit dessert.” – Samin Nosrat (06:52)
• “I just try to make a liqueur out of it… and then forget about it for seven years.” – Kate Lebo, on dealing with excess medlars (15:14)
• “One of the greatest acts of love is like preparing fruit for someone.” – Samin Nosrat (31:40)
• “We're getting to the core.” – Hrishikesh Hirway (48:25)
• “You could serve a bowl of pomegranate granita with pomegranate arils and a little drizzle of pomegranate molasses. You could just go triple. Pom pom, pom pom.” – Samin Nosrat (49:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:07 – Reveal of “difficult fruit” theme
• 10:06–17:32 – Medlar deep dive with Kate Lebo
• 21:36–31:32 – Tips and stories about preparing pomegranates
• 32:33–38:49 – Prickly pears and vinegar making
• 38:53–42:53 – Culinary uses for fig leaves
• 43:00–46:39 – Using citrus leaves and branches in cooking
• 46:43–49:21 – Ice cream and frozen desserts featuring difficult fruits
• 49:44–50:12 – “Food as language” and affectionate food rituals

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Resources & Further Reading

• The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo
• Persian Fesenjun recipe by Samin Nosrat (New York Times Cooking)
• Granita and sorbet tips
• Home Cooking website: homecooking.show

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Tone & Style

Warm, playful, inquisitive, and occasionally punny; the hosts combine deep cultural knowledge with light-hearted banter and a welcoming approach to confusing or intimidating ingredients.

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This episode provides a treasure trove of ideas and encouragement, showing that even the most challenging fruit can become the source of kitchen joy, creativity, and connection. Whether you’re swimming in medlars or wondering what to do with pomegranate molasses, Samin, Hrishi, and their guest Kate invite you to approach challenging ingredients with curiosity, reverence, and a willingness to get a little messy.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, Home cookies. It's my 46th birthday this weekend, so to celebrate, I'm raising money for Feeding America, a national network of food banks and pantries. Help me meet my goal of raising $10,000. And as a bonus, I'll donate a matching amount to my local food bank, the Alameda County Community Food Bank.

[B]

To learn more and support Samin's fundraiser, visit homecooking show saminbday. That's homecooking Show. S A M I N B D.

[A]

A Y thanks so much, friends. Take care. This episode of Home Cooking is brought to you by Real California Milk. Did you know that 99% of California dairy farms are family owned? It's true. Many have been passed down for generations, from grandparents to parents and now to grandkids, each adding their own piece to the story of the farm. These families care. They care about their cows, their land, their community, and the quality of the milk they produce. They also care about the future, which is why so many are using sustainable practices to keep their farms going strong for generations to come. So when you see the Real California milk seal, you know it's from real California families. Cooking with real dairy makes food feel familiar and comforting. And it shows up in so many of the dishes we love most, like the holiday classics, the ones that just wouldn't be the same without butter, milk or cream. That's why we need it. Real California Milk by Real California families. Look for the seal.

[B]

Thanks to Quince for being our sponsor. Quince has everything you need for cooking and gathering this season. They've got stainless steel and ceramic nonstick pots and pans, a cast iron Dutch oven, and chef's knives.

[A]

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[A]

That's Q U I n c e.com homecooking to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

[B]

Quince.com homecooking what am I doing? You are starting our show.

[A]

Oh, hi, I'm Samin.

[B]

Full name, please.

[A]

Really?

[B]

That's what you normally do?

[A]

I do, yeah. How do you know?

[B]

Because we've done this, well 24 times.

[A]

Hi, I'm Samin Nosrat.

[B]

And I'm Hrishikesh Hirway.

[A]

And we're home cooking.

[B]

And this is episode 25 of our four part series. And you would think by now Samin knows how the episode starts.

[A]

Rishi, what's the best thing you ate recently? Or best thing you cooked even?

[B]

Well, I have successfully made Samini's teeny tahini sardini panini many times. I'm on autopilot. I'm a panini machini.

[A]

Oh, you're a machini. Okay, talk us through the recipe.

[B]

What I do is one tin of sardines, two spoons of tahini, red onions, chopped pickles, cucumbers, just for a mix of pickled and unpickled, some lemon juice, a tiny bit of salt because it's actually pretty salty.

[A]

Salty from the fish? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And some za'. Atar.

[A]

Ooh, innovating over there.

[B]

And then I eat it on a piece of Lindsay's sourdough bread.

[A]

I feel like Lindsay's sourdough bread is famous. I was thinking about it this morning. I was like, everything Rishi talks about comes on a piece of Lindsey's sourdough bread.

[B]

Yeah. It's an edible plate. She makes this olive rosemary sourdough bread. It's incredible.

[A]

Are all of the loaves she makes. I did not even mean to do that. But does she exclusively make olive rosemary bread or does she ever make plain? This is one of the things I was wondering this morning because sometimes you don't want savory mix ins. Like if you want to make, I don't know, a PBJ or French toast or something.

[B]

Yeah, she does make the plain kind, but I just eat the rosemary olive one more often.

[A]

I see. Now, I will take you up next time I come to visit.

[B]

You'll let me make it for you. Mm, great.

[A]

Do you put herbs in it ever or just the zaatar?

[B]

I have sometimes put coriander.

[A]

Mm. You mean cilantro.

[B]

Yeah, whatever the word is.

[A]

You've been watching too much British television.

[B]

Always.

[A]

Cause I also feel like dill would be good in it.

[B]

It would be good. And we have a ton of dill growing in the backyard.

[A]

I have a really hard time with dill in my garden. Like, I've never successfully grown dill.

[B]

What's the deal?

[A]

I don't know what the dill is.

[B]

Okay, what's the best thing you ate recently?

[A]

I'm home for a little stretch of time in between book tour legs. And it's really nice to be home. The other night, we had a Monday dinner. Rosh Hashanah. Spectacular.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

So the family, Sarah and everyone made a huge, beautiful challah. That was so good. And Sarah made this cake that I have never experienced before or heard of. It's called Invisible Apple Cake. I think it's a traditional French cake called gateau Invisible, and there's a really beautiful looking recipe for it on Smitten Kitchen. Basically, you just thinly slice a bunch of apples on a mandolin and then toss them with essentially, like an eggy crepe batter. It's kind of like making a potato gratin. You layer the apples into a loaf pan. The cake is almost all apple, just, like, barely bound together with batter. And it was so custardy and delicious, but also so much apple. A lot of times, I know this is gonna be really controversial in apple desserts. If there's too much crust to apple, I don't like it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, like, I actually don't think I like a double crust apple pie. I would prefer to eat an apple pie with streusel on top.

[B]

You don't think the crust might be the best part? I know.

[A]

This is why I'm saying people are going to hate me. I like the fruit in a fruit pie, but not always, because sometimes fruit is mistreated and abused.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm just saying people do really criminal things to fruits. You know, like, one of the things in a fruit pie that I cannot stand is when there's way too much starch added and then it's very stiff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I also don't like it if it's too runny. I don't like if it's overcooked. I hate that. But I also hate if it's undercooked. I'm just saying treating the fruit with care and love and respect should be everyone's goal in a fruit dessert.

[B]

I'm so glad that you mentioned this, because, Samin, you don't know this yet, but the theme for this episode is.

[A]

Difficult fruit is difficult fruit. No way. Yeah. Richie, I can't believe you curated a difficult fruit episode for me. I'm so honored.

[B]

Will you tell people what the Book of Difficult Fruit is?

[A]

So there is a poet and pie maker and pie making teacher named Kate Lebo, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. And she has written several books. And her most recent book is called the Book of Difficult Fruit. And it's such a beautiful book. I wrote about it in actually my last column for the New York Times. I mention it in Good Things because she's just an extraordinary writer, but she also has, like, a deeply intimate relationship to baking and to fruit and to cooking. And so she's a rarity in food writing. Like, for me, she kind of is the poet who's coming to food rather than the food writer who's trying to be a poet. The Book of Difficult Fruit is about fruits that in one way or another are complicated or difficult. Whether it's harvesting them, preparing them, eating them. Like, sometimes they might just present some sort of a challenge. So it's kind of celebrating these fruits that people. People might write off or consider unworthy or too much trouble.

[B]

There are 26 different entries. Each one is a letter that represents a different fruit.

[A]

Oh, that's cool. I forgot that part of it.

[B]

In your introduction to Good Things, you say, I've come to think of recipes. Sorry, I've come to think of recipes.

[A]

Uh, oh, not as.

[B]

Not as rigid prescriptions, but as, quote, rituals that promise transformation. As the poet and pie maker Kate Lebo so beautifully put it. What I love about the theme of difficult fruit is, as you already mentioned, kind of all fruit has the potential to be difficult fruit.

[A]

Yeah. Like there's a huge pile of passion fruit sitting outside waiting for me to process it. So that's a difficulty right now. Even though it's my favorite fruit.

[B]

And even just apples, as you mentioned, there's so many ways that it can go wrong.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

We got one question that really inspired this whole episode, so I thought we should start there. Hey, Samin and Richie, this is Steve from Canberra in Australia. My question's about medlars. We have a medlar tree in our backyard, and because I'm an advocate for the fruit among my friends, people give me meddlers each winter, which means I always have way too many meddlers. So I need some help finding some new recipes. So far, I've made the River Cottage chutney, a jelly. I've made a UK style brown sauce. I've made a tart with a chocolate ganache on top, which was pretty. But have you got any other suggestions? Oh, and have you got thoughts on how I could more easily separate the seeds from the flesh once they've bled it? I'D really appreciate that. Okay, thanks. Bye.

[A]

Wow. Holy moly. Steve. I feel way out of my depth. I feel like I need to phone a friend, frankly.

[B]

I mean, part of the reason why I was excited about this is because I don't really know what a meddler is.

[A]

And, I mean, you're a meddler.

[B]

But I read about them in the Book of Difficult Fruit.

[A]

Okay, I must come clean because I, my own self, have never met a meddler.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yes. I have only read about them and heard about them, but I've never touched one or eaten one.

[B]

Could we call Kate Lebow?

[A]

Should I try calling her right now?

[B]

Yes. Could you please introduce yourself?

[C]

It's me. I'm Kate Lebo. I'm a writer and a fruit obsessive. I wrote a book called the Book of Difficult Fruit, in part because I found out about the existence of this fruit called the Meddler. And it sparked my curiosity to the extent that I had to then go on for, like, seven years of my life. 400 pages.

[B]

I didn't realize that the Meddler was part of the origin story of this book because it's also the fruit that led me to your book.

[C]

Oh, fascinating. Well, let's see. Around, like, 2010, I got a tip that there were a couple Meddler trees in the Seattle center, right around the Space Needle, and then another in the arboretum. So I went with a friend to go foraging for this fruit, and one of my first experiences, eating rotten things on purpose.

[B]

And how would you explain what a meddler is for someone who's never encountered one before?

[C]

So they're a relative of the quince and the apple. They're in the rose family, like so many delicious fruits are. So they look like a giant rosehip, but like a kind of a very lurid rosehip. Its nickname was Open Arsenal. That's what it looked like. And it was a fruit that would have been the last sweet thing on the branch before winter blasted in. So you're not supposed to pick it until right after the first frost, and you don't eat it until it has bletted a little bit. So that's also the process that some persimmons go through to become a little bit fermented, a little bit rotten, you could say, but soft anyway, and more flavorful so that all the starches and pectins have broken down.

[A]

Is it like the tannin? Because I know with a persimmon, part of it, if you eat it before it's all the way ripe, it's so tannic it like Dries out your mouth. Especially the hachiyas, you know, the long ones that we eat with a spoon. Once they're all the way ripe and sweet and spoonable, the tannins have gone way down. So does that happen with the meddlers, too?

[C]

I'm guessing that's the case. So I've thought about the tannins and meddlers only in terms of, like, they show up later, which. With some ideas that I have for Steve, but I've never been brave enough to eat one that wasn't. Bled it because they don't look very good. And that's the thing. Like, this fruit actually is not that tasty. If you really get down to it.

[A]

Even.

[B]

Even under ideal circumstances, it's not that tasty.

[C]

Well, I do have a tasty version that I will tell you about, but I think if you just take it off the tree and it's gone through a couple frosts and it's a little effervescent. Like, the first bite is sort of like a bad sparkling wine, and it's sort of apple saucy. And then, like, the last bite is mildew.

[A]

Oh, pretty awesome.

[B]

What do you think about Steve here describing himself as an advocate for meddlers?

[C]

I was so excited. I was like, what is this magical land in Australia where he's, like, drowning in meddler? My problem is that I can never get enough of them. I actually have to fight squirrels to get them before they forage them for winter.

[B]

I'm a little surprised after hearing you describe them and having frankly read the chapter in your book about them, that you even want them at all.

[C]

Oh, but they're so cool. They're so beautiful.

[A]

Is it like an ideology over taste thing for you?

[C]

I think that at first it was. I was excited about the idea of a fruit that had to age so far to become sweet and delectable. And just as a metaphor that blew my mind. I got excited about it. But then as I went through all my different attempts to make it delicious, I also just like. I mean, delicious according to my palate. I guess I came to appreciate the kind of hidden qualities of it. Like, remember Steve mentioned, like, he made a tart that had a chocolate ganache. And when he said that, I was like, I bet that was kind of good because of the ganache. Because, I mean, meddler paste, the fruit of the actual meddler just has a general kind of spiced baked apple flavor sort of. And if they're picked too soon, it can be really starchy and kind of weird. And you go through so much work to get this. Like I could take a pound of Meddler to get one quarter of a cup of the paste.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

I've got this failed recipe that I tried to write for the book that I couldn't publish because I couldn't test it. I didn't have enough Meddler. But it also, like, I wasn't sure if it was good enough. But basically what I did was I blind baked a pastry shell and spread some Meddler paste in the bottom and then I spread sweetened chevre over it. And that combo was really nice.

[A]

That sounds really good.

[C]

Yeah. And I put some like honeyed candied quince because quince is also around at the same time Meddler is around. And it was a lovely little pie that took forever to make and was sort of good.

[B]

So maybe that's one idea for Steve.

[C]

Maybe that's an idea for Steve. And I've got that recipe. If he wants to like go with my draft and kick it down the road a little bit, I would love that. What I do when I have way too much fruit that I don't know what to do with and I'm pressed for time is I just try to make a liqueur at it. I put it into neutral grain spirits and tell myself I'm gonna go back in a month and put some aromatics in and then forget about it for seven years.

[A]

But that probably makes it really good. I do that a lot of times with like the green walnuts for no Chino and stuff like that. And I feel like the longer it sits actually, the better it gets.

[C]

I just tasted it and I was making it on the no Chino model. So I was supposed to go back in like November 30, 2019 and put, put some aromatics in it. And I never did. So this is just what I'm trying right now. And smelling is. It's just plain old medlar liqueur and it's pretty good. So all that experimentation and failure was worth the reward, which was discovering Medler jelly. So to make a jelly, you basically do a decoction of mostly well blooded meddlers. You want some that are not quite as well blooded, so you get their pectin content. So you cover your Meddlers in water, boil them for a while, strain it through a jelly bag, and then you take the liquid that you get and you add an equal volume of sugar and to a preserving pan. What I also like to add is a bag of lemon skeletons. So those are just leftover Lemons that I've saved. I'll usually do, like, the skeletons from two lemons. And then you make a jelly. The recipe for it is in the Book of Difficult Fruit. And the flavor of this is like stepping into a warm house on a cold day and getting that whiff of leaves.

[A]

Mm.

[C]

It reminds me of Huebo's tea a little bit. That kind of sweet, tannic, toasty flavor. It's got this, like, distinctive, beautiful, delicate flavor.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

I serve it with blue cheese. I serve it with Chev. I just eat it by the spoonful sometimes.

[A]

Oh, my God, it sounds so good. It looks so good too. It looks very like amber. Like a rich honey.

[C]

Yes. And it runs like that. Like this has become thicker over time. I'm actually really proud of that.

[A]

Yeah, it's beautiful. That's so helpful. We really found the world's meddler expert for you, Steve, so I hope you appreciate this.

[B]

Steve, please let us know. We can't try it because we can't get meddlers over here. So I'm expecting a crate of Medler jelly from Steve coming in from Australia.

[A]

In three to four years. Yeah.

[C]

For the record, I actually can Source you about 10 pounds of Medler right now if you want to try it.

[A]

Rishi does not want to try it. I guarantee you he's.

[B]

What are you going to do?

[A]

You've still never even made a banana bread. You think you're going to make a Meddler jelly? I don't think so. Amazing.

[B]

Kate, thank you so much for your expertise and your time.

[A]

Thank you, Kate.

[C]

My pleasure.

[B]

Thanks so much for the question, Steve, and really for giving me a reason to put this theme together.

[A]

Yes. Thank you. I'm excited. Famous Amos. It's a name that is synonymous with chocolate chip cookies. He's also my dad. I'm in a supermarket. I'm in convenience stores. I'm in department stores.

[C]

That's what makes Amos famous.

[A]

Wally Famous Amos. He opened the first ever chocolate chip cookie store 50 years ago.

[C]

When he passed away last year, I.

[A]

Set out to understand how he became one of the most famous black men in America. I remember dad on the COVID of Time magazine. The headline was the Hot New Rich. While also leaving his life and our family in chaos.

[C]

What did you think when I first.

[A]

Told you I was thinking of doing.

[C]

A podcast about our family?

[A]

How much collateral damage is it gonna cause? From Vanity Fair, I'm Sarah Amos, and this is Tough Cookie, the Wally Famous Amos Story, available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to Home Chef for sponsoring our show Home Chef makes cooking simple, fresh food delivered, easy recipes to follow and meals that actually taste great.

[B]

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[A]

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[A]

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[A]

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[A]

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[B]

Our next difficult fruit is one that's actually pretty close to home. I'm dealing with this right now.

[A]

Hi Samin and Rishi.

[C]

My name is Celeste. My friend recently gifted us with some.

[A]

Huge and beautiful pomegranates and we've been.

[C]

Enjoying taking them apart and finding all the gems inside. So far, we've mostly enjoyed them by the spoonful and have put them on salads. But I'm wondering if you have any favorite recipes or any great uses for.

[A]

All these awesome seeds.

[C]

Thank you so much.

[A]

Oh, I love this question. Another Persian fruit. So many fruits come from Iran. This is the Difficult Iranians, AKA me.

[B]

Do you know I have a pomegranate tree?

[A]

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, we have two and ours are coming in right now too. And as you know, our friend Laurel, who has a fruit orchard, has like massive amounts that she gets every year. And, and so watching her and her husband Josh, they deal with pomegranates this time every year and it's a real production. So I feel like watching them process their pomegranates and do things with them has given me some ideas for you, Celeste.

[B]

My mom loved pomegranates and it was always such a special event in our house when it would be pomegranate season and she would do all the work, which was great. You know, she'd hand me like a little bowl of already seeded pomegranate seeds. And so I was really excited when I we moved into this house that had a pomegranate tree because I just flashback to that memory and it felt so nice. Cut to. It's pomegranate season and Suddenly we've got 25 pomegranates instead of the one that my mom would take apart. And I'm like, what do. I don't want this much work. It's a wonderful bounty and also a curse.

[A]

Pomegranate is for sure a lot of work. There's a word for the little seeds inside. They're called arils. A R I L S As a kid, I also remember when it was winter and we'd get pomegranates and one of the adults would kind of very painstakingly and messily remove all of the arils. And then, you know, we'd have this bowl of them and the most common way that we ate them was just by the spoonful, but specifically with salt. And this was always a very interesting thing for me because my mom was a very low sodium cook, which I don't know if you know this, but I like salt a lot. Yeah. So it was kind of always confounding to me that you would put salt on fruit. Yeah. But now that I understand, I'm like, oh, it kind of makes sense because they're very tart, and so the salt sort of, like, balances the tartness and, like, makes them more sweet and pleasant. It was just a cool, very specific Iranian thing to eat them by the spoonful with salt.

[B]

I love eating fruit with salt.

[A]

Oh, what other fruit do you eat with salt?

[B]

I learned this from my uncle. I eat apples with maldon salt on top of them, and I'm very fancy.

[A]

Do you ever put salt on watermelon? Because I feel like watermelon and feta salad is a classico. So, like, that one could be good.

[B]

I put salt on peaches and nectarines.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Another place I think some people like classically put salt is if they're eating like a half grapefruit for breakfast, they might sprinkle it with a little salt to balance the bitterness. Anyway, back to pomegranates. Another thing that is done a lot in Persian cuisine is once the juice is squeezed from the arils, it'll get cooked down into a very thick syrup or what's called pomegranate molasses.

[B]

Oh, hold on one second. Actually, here's another question.

[A]

Hey, Samin. Hi, Rishi. It's Bev. I'm from London. Recently, I cooked a recipe using pomegranate molasses, and right now I have this massive bottle in my fridge, and I don't know what to do with it. I just don't really know what other dishes I could cook it with. So if you were me and if you had this massive bottle of pomegranate molasses at the back of your fridge, what would you do with it?

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Oh, this is so. What a beautiful dovetailing.

[B]

Yeah. What would you make with the pomegranate molasses when you were growing up?

[A]

Yeah, I would say the most, like, famous dish and my favorite dish made with pomegranate molasses is a stew called fessenjun, which is like the Persian version of mole. If you will saute some onions, grind up walnuts, toast them in this pan with these onions until the oil starts to come out of the walnuts. And then you add a ton of pomegranate molasses. And so there's this, like, kind of sweet and sour thing going that's layered on top of the caramelization of the onions and the savoriness and then the toastiness of the nuts. And this gets cooked for a very long time and pureed into a very smooth sauce that you can then like cook chicken in or lamb, or you could keep it vegetarian. And then we traditionally eat this over rice. And it's really traditionally a winter food because of the pomegranate. And specifically I feel like I associate it with shabayalda, which is the Persian winter solstice celebration. But I just remember, like, this was one of the ways I learned about seasonality because I was always a very. It's called shekamu as a kid in Farsi, or like the Italian word for it is buona forchetta, which is like a good eater. Or like shekamu literally means like stomachy, just like lead by your stomach, you know. And so I had a period of like, probably from like ages 8 to 12 where I was had basically like rankings or polls of my favorite dishes.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

And so I remember it was a real sort of maturity when Fesen June hit my number one spot. Because in some ways, with all of the tannins from the walnut and the sweet and sour from the pomegranate, it is a little bit more of like a mature, elegant, refined taste. Now I just love it so much, but I understand why. As a kid it was maybe like not my favorite, but it's really delicious and I've made it for many non Iranians who also love it. Actually, I wrote a recipe for it in the New York Times Cooking. So we'll link to that. But to go back to Celeste's question, I do think again, it's not labor free, but what Josh and Laurel do with the bulk of their pomegranates. And I will say Josh grumbles about this and is ever searching for a better, more efficient way of doing it. And I don't think that there is one unless you're like industrial pomegranate factory. But he has one of those old fashioned crank citrus juicers. Can you picture what I'm saying? You'll put half of the citrus in and then crank the top down the.

[B]

Big old vice with the.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that is basically the most efficient way to juice pomegranates, which is also incredibly messy. Honestly. It could be a natural dye. You could do two things at the same time. You could like drape yourself in a sheet that you're gonna make a splatter pattern on and then juice your pomegranates and then they just freeze a ton of pomegranate juice and make cocktails with it and serve it as juice and drinks and stuff. But you could also then reduce it and make your own pomegranate molasses, which would be a really cool project. Honest. And then if you wanted to, you could then turn it into fesenjun.

[B]

I was just thinking about your rankings.

[A]

My polls.

[B]

Your polls. I was wondering if you would ever, you know, maybe design a bracket where your top foods would have to compete against one another.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

The pomegranate based one sounded like it would be the number one seed.

[A]

Oh, Rishi, can I say one thing.

[B]

About the messiness thing?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know how moms have superpowers?

[A]

Mm.

[B]

One of my mom's superpowers was that she could open and de seed the pomegranate, and it was not messy at all.

[A]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[B]

No little bits. She would also de kernel corn on the cob with her hands.

[A]

With her hands.

[B]

She would take all of the kernels of corn off of the cob, and the cob would be perfectly clean by the end. Like, no little bits. It was crazy. I don't know.

[A]

That's amazing.

[B]

I just thought it was like an adult thing when I was a kid, but now I'm an adult and it's impossible.

[A]

I always was really messy, and I feel like in my family there was mess involved in the seeding of the pomegranates. But I think one of the ways to make it a lot less messy if you're just individually removing, you know, the arils from pomegranate, is to score the pomegranate in quarters and then use your hands to sort of tear the pomegranate into quarters, because it'll naturally tear into pieces, like these big, beautiful chunks of arils. If you just go into it with a knife and cut it in half or cut it into quarters, you're just doing it in the middle and all this juice is coming out. And it's not following, like, the natural veins of the fruit. But if you follow the natural veins of the fruit, you'll see that there are actually, like, clumps of perfectly pristine seeds that you can then remove and avoid all of the white pith. And there's also, like a whole other old country trick. That's the wooden spoon trick. People will like, you know, halve the fruit and then hold it sort of fruit side down, skin side up, over a bowl, and then tap on the outside with a wooden spoon to dislodge the seeds. That's never worked for me. And then the other way I know to do it is to do the entire process, or most of it, in a bowl of water, because in theory, the pith floats and the seeds sink. So then you can like skim the pith off. So those are like tricks to make it a little bit easier. But it's still no matter what a process. It's just I'm probably 10 times faster at it now than I was when I used to just cut it in half.

[B]

It was always fascinating because, yeah, she would score around the outside, crack it in half with all of that natural topography intact, and then undo all of the seeds by hand.

[A]

I also feel like this is a really immigrant kid. Maybe it's all kids. I don't know. It's definitely like, I can relate to the sort of wonder of watching like your elders. Like, for me, it was often my grandmother or my aunts peeling an apple in one piece.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. I think this is an all kid thing.

[A]

Yeah. There's just like a touch that certain people had with fruit that often made it way more exciting for me to eat. Like, I would never just like pick up an apple and eat it, but if my aunt cut up an apple.

[B]

I'd be like, yes, I didn't really love apples growing up if I had to just eat one. But I would happily have one that my mom had like, sliced up.

[A]

Truly. In fact, I often say one of the greatest acts of love is like preparing fruit for someone.

[B]

Yeah. A side note about this book of difficult fruit is I thought it would be a really lovely, romantic, wonderful anniversary present for my wife, who is a fantastic gardener and cook and who loves a challenge and recipes. And I tried to make some kind of metaphor about marriage being a process that requires care and attention, much like difficult fruit.

[A]

And didn't work for you, did it?

[B]

The subtitle of the book is Arguments for the Tart, Tender and Unruly. And I was like, look, I saw this and I thought of you. And yeah, she didn't appreciate the that.

[A]

I wonder why.

[B]

But with that, here's a question from Saurabh.

[A]

Another Persian. This is truly the most Persian episode we've ever had.

[B]

My name is Sohrab. I have the most beautiful, amazing, huge prickly pear cactus. This year, for some reason, there's. There's more fruits coming in than ever before. There's going to be well over a hundred. In the past, I've taken the fruits and gone through the laborious process of getting the meat out and infusing it in tequila. And that's great. But this year, there's no way that I can handle that much prickly pear tequila with this many coming in And I really would love to find a way to use them. I was wondering if you have any thoughts about it. I was particularly wondering if there'd be a way to either infuse like vinegar or make a prickly pear flavored vinegar. I would think that would be good, but I have no idea how to do that.

[A]

I don't know. The thing about a lot of these fruits is they've got some serious seeds, like prickly pears.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Have you ever seen a prickly pear fruit?

[B]

I've seen them growing on a cactus.

[A]

So in Mexico they're called tuna. The fruits. One of my favorite things about being in Mexico is like you go to the, you know, the fresh produce market.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's just an amazing culture of juice. I love juice. So you can get anything turned into juice and you get a huge juice. Like here, if you want a juice, you have to go to erewhon and pay $45, you know what I'm saying? Like in Mexico it's like an amazing juice culture. But that is where I first experienced, like in the mornings we would either get the tuna in the juice or we would just sit there and eat tuna. Which was like an interesting experience for me because it's a fruit that's very seedy. I think one could figure out how to like eat around the seeds and spit them out. But I think I was also just in Sicily for vacation earlier this summer and there were prickly pear cactuses everywhere. And the fruit is everywhere. And in Italian it's called fici di India. Fici di India. Indian figs. I think it has to do with the trade coming back from the West Indies. So there they'll eat them for breakfast, they'll turn them into gelato flavors or into like a juice that becomes part of a cocktail or like often jam. That's like you'll eat with yogurt for breakfast. But we were served often in the morning, like a big plate of them that were very carefully peeled for us. But then we still, you know, one eats it and the decision is like, do you do the painstaking, like and probably not worth it work of eating around the seeds or removing the seeds? They were like, no, no, Fiki D. India is about like a Zen state of mind. And so you put it in your mouth and you just know that they're seeds. And then you kind of gum the fruit like as if you had no teeth and you had taken your dentures out.

[B]

Uh huh.

[A]

And you kind of just eat it like this. So then you can like eat the fruit without cracking the seeds. And then you just swallow the seeds.

[B]

And then you swallow the seeds.

[A]

Yeah. That was sort of how we learned the traditional Italian, Sicilian way to eat the fici di India.

[B]

And then you do an mri and it turns out there's a tiny prickly pear growing inside you.

[A]

Yes. And then you're back to being your difficult fruit.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But I do think that the project and the idea of turning the fruit into vinegar is a really good one. And I actually think this is a good idea for any sort of fruit that you may, like, sort of just be blessed or cursed with an abundance of, and you don't know necessarily what to do with it, or you don't have the energy or time to process it into a jam or juice or something. Vinegar is actually a really simple and kind of beautiful thing to make, and it involves a lot less processing of the fruit because really all you're doing is you're just letting it ferment, but you have to do it in a careful way so that it's not disgusting and it actually becomes safe and, like, acidic enough in the right way.

[B]

Have you ever heard of someone making a prickly pear vinegar?

[A]

I haven't, but I think it's a great idea, and I don't think it's that complicated. So you would have to peel the fruit. You would have to do that. And then you can just, like, throw everything into a food processor and sort of, like, turn it into a loose, chunky puree, and then just dump all of that into a big jar. And then really, probably the simplest way to do it is to add, like, a live mother from another vinegar. So something like a live apple cider vinegar that you could buy at the farmer's market or at, like, a natural food store. And then you want to keep it in a warm place until it ferments and make sure you know that it's fermenting properly. So this is involves a little bit more baby, a little more information than I can just tell you off the top of my head.

[B]

Were you going to say babying?

[A]

I was gonna say babying.

[B]

Is that because you just told them to get a vinegar mother?

[A]

I did, yes.

[B]

Because eventually apple cider vinegar will de seed a pomegranate for you very cleanly.

[A]

Cut up your fruit and serve it to you with salt. You know, actually, who would know about how to do this and have a lot of information for our website is Amalia, who works with me, who has done a lot more fermentation at home. Than I have. We will write up some notes for how to go about turning basically any fruit into vinegar. It'll be different for different fruits since they have different sugar contents and you shouldn't compare them.

[B]

It would be like comparing apples and oranges.

[A]

Okay. Oh, my God. What's wrong with me? I've never gotten around to doing this, but I always think about this because we have a massive, like, 60 year old fig tree that's just for months on end dropping figs in the yard. And I always joke that we're just like making vinegar in the wild. You know, you're just walking by and it's like fermenting and there's fruit flies and you're always raking them up and putting them in the compost. And then kind of right when the fig tree stops dropping fruit, the persimmon tree starts.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I know one of my neighbors one year did make persimmon vinegar. So I do know you can pretty much turn any of these fruits that are like high sugar fruits pretty easily into vinegar. And we will absolutely, like, make a little guide because I think prickly pear vinegar would not only be delicious, I think it would be really beautiful. They come in different colors, the fruits. Some are like this incredibly beautifully, like pinkish red, and some are kind of like a mango, like, yellowy orange color. So either one, I think would make a really beautiful and really tasty vinegar.

[B]

Well, let me go back to your tree outside for a second.

[A]

Hi, Samina Nrishi. My name is Pratiti and I'm calling in from Lebanon, Pennsylvania. So I have a couple of fig trees which produce delicious figs, but also have these beautiful fragrant leaves. The Internet tells me that fig leaves are edible, but I can't find any instructions or inspiration on how to actually use them. I'd love to hear your ideas. Ooh, I love this question. Oh, I love this question.

[B]

Have you ever used the fig leaves from the tree outside your house?

[A]

I use them all the time. I feel like there's a picture of me picking the fig leaves in my book. I love the taste and the smell of fig leaves. So the most common use for a fig leaf that I've come across is to use it as a wrapper for grilling or baking fish. And the thing about the fig leaves is it's so sort of counterintuitive, but there's almost this, like, coconutty fragrance that they give off to me. It's this heavenly green aroma. It's nutty, it's coconutty, it's A very specific, like, taste of fig leaf that I love so much. So what a cool treasure that you have a fig tree and you have all the fig leaves. And I love that you're curious about this. So we often just cook salmon on a fig leaf, and there's just some way that the fig perfumes the fish. Halibut will work. You could wrap scallops. You could do individual little fig leaf packets and sort of seal them with a toothpick and grill them or cook them in an oven. You don't eat the fig leaf. I will say once I was at a fancy restaurant where food came served on a fig leaf, and my dining companion, before I could sort of realize what was happening, ate the whole fig leaf. That's just a lot of fiber. It's not bad for you. But I think that my dining companion was confused and thought it was a grape leaf. Grape leaves are much more tender, and we can, you know, eat a grape leaf. Fig leaf is more about the flavor and the aroma that it gives to something. You could also wrap a little piece of goat cheese or some ricotta in a fig leaf and then grill that, and then that'll give its flavor. You could sort of set a whole layer of fig leaves into a baking dish and then honestly, roast figs on top of it. Like figs with balsamic vinegar roasted on a fig leaf are amazing. So that sort of idea of using it as a flavoring agent for roasting or grilling and even a little wrapper is use number one.

[B]

Oh, yeah. The original use a little wrapper in the Garden of Eden.

[A]

Oh, it is true. It is the original use. It's true. Speaking of vinegars, you could make a fig leaf vinegar. Chris Crawford from tart vinegar actually has a fig leaf vinegar that, you know, the steeping of the fig leaves does that same thing, and it sort of takes in and absorbs all of those amazing aromas. And then you have this, like, coconutty, amazing thing. Another use for fig leaves that I find really, like, elegant and delicious is you can either toast them or roast them in the oven, or grill them or use them raw and steep them in cream. You can then use to make either a custard, like a panna cotta or something, or an ice cream base or even just a slightly sweetened whipped cream. And if I was just making whipped cream, I might take, like, one cup of cream and steep it with fig leaves that I gently warm for a little while and then mix that in and let that sit overnight. So it really gets Strong figgly flavor. And then add some unheated whipping cream and whip that together so that it has the best possible taste and texture. And my final thing that I learned from Julia Sherman, in one of her cookbooks, she did something so cool and so original, I'd never seen it anywhere else. She took fig leaves, she grilled or toasted them, she let them get totally dried out, and then she put em in a spice grinder or a Vitamix blender and ground them up into a powder that then she mixed with salt and used that to season chicken, a roast chicken. But you could also use that fig leaf salt for fish or for anything else. And that I thought was a really smart and cool way to get fig leaf taste.

[B]

It's like a figicake.

[A]

It is like a figikake.

[B]

Okay, here's one more question that we got before we leave this topic altogether.

[A]

Hi, Sabine and Rishi. My name is Lacey and I'm from Little Rock, Arkansas. I have a small lemon tree and I have a small key lime tree. I don't get fruit too often from it, but when I do, I like to make like a limeade or something from scratch. But my question is, is there anything that I can do with the leaves, especially from the lime tree? I've noticed whenever I pick off the leaves and I bend them in half, they have the most amazing scent to them. And I'm just curious, is there any way that I can utilize the lime leaf or the lemon leaf in some sort of recipe? Thank you so much.

[B]

Is it the same principle for the fig leaf? Can you do the same sort of things that you were describing?

[A]

In a way, yes. I love this question also because I, you know, I grew up as a cook in a very sort of French Italian kitchen. And so we learned things like using rosemary sprigs, like long pieces of rosemary. Remove the rosemary leaves from the central, you know, twig, and then use that stick as a skewer for something like a kebab.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And so it, like, perfumes, you know, your meat. So I've seen that with rosemary. And then I've also seen all these uses for grape leaves and fig leaves. And I also love citrus leaves. I think the smell is amazing. And you're totally right, Lacy. I'm sure many people, including you, probably know about the makrut lime, which is the, like, common lime leaf that we use in all the Southeast Asian kind of cooking, and has a very fragrant smell. It's so beautiful. But if I'm somewhere else or I Just don't have the leaves around. If there is another lime tree or lemon tree, sometimes I'll just add a few of those leaves in. It's not exactly the same flavor, but because there is such an incredible sort of citrus oil fragrance to citrus leaves, I think that works. But the really cool thing that I experienced when I was in Sicily was we went to a seafood restaurant, and they had these, like. I think they were swordfish kebabs, and they had been skewered on citrus skewers. So they had taken these long twigs of citrus and taken off all of the leaves except for the last couple, and then used that to grill the fish. And in between pieces of fish, they had a leaf. So they would be like, fish cube, slide a leaf down. Fish cube, slide a leaf down. And so it perfumed the whole thing in this really amazing way. And what was incredible was I was having the meal with two other chefs and my friends, Laurel and Josh. They live on a citrus orchard, and none of us had ever seen or thought to do this before. So it was really sort of this, like, amazing moment for all of us. And we were thinking about all the possibilities for a citrus skewer. And I think if you don't eat fish or you don't eat meat, you could make, like, a grilled halloumi.

[B]

Grilled halaimi.

[A]

A grilled halaimi, or even, I think mushrooms could work. Mushroom and citrus seems kind of interesting, but I think you could sort of treat the longer, still thin, twiggy branches as a skewer. Or you could also line a dish.

[B]

You could lime a dish.

[A]

You could lime a dish. It's true. Jeez.

[B]

Question for you. Was the flavor of that dish significantly different than if you had, say, just squeezed lime juice on it?

[A]

Yes, because the leaves are rich in the citrus oils. And so, you know, the part of the fruit that's rich in the oils is the zest, not the juice. So the juice is like tartness and freshness, whereas the leaves have their own distinct aroma. They are sort of closer in some ways to the pith or the zest. And that is its own distinct sort of addition, which was really special. Great question, and I hope that this helps.

[B]

Thanks, Lacy, so much for this question.

[A]

Ooh, that was cool. I really like that one.

[B]

Similar to the idea of using these fruits in vinegars. What about ice creams? Could you imagine a prickly pear ice cream?

[A]

Yeah. Or, like, for me, prickly pear, because it's, like, so watery and flavorful. I would make it into sorbet or like a granita before ice cream. But yeah, yeah, absolutely. Figs, I think you could roast and like add them in to an ice cream base. I would maybe make like a fig leaf flavored base and then swirl in like balsamic y roasted figs or something like that.

[B]

I can't remember if we've already talked about the Indian ice cream brand Naturals.

[A]

No, I've never heard of this.

[B]

Whenever I go to India, I always try and go to this ice cream shop called Naturals. They have several locations and it's all fruit based ice cream or mostly fruit based ice cream fruits that we don't have here in the US and it's as good as all of my favorite ice creams, but with flavors that I can only have there. My favorite I think might be sitafal ice cream, which is. Sitaful is the Indian name for a custard apple.

[A]

Is that not the same as a cherimoya? Yeah. There's also a pawpaw is related. Wow. All these fruits are related.

[B]

The other one that's my favorite is chiku.

[A]

I've had chiku because there is a creamery called Kulfi Creamery here in the Bay Area in San Leandro that is like an Indian inspired ice cream.

[B]

Oh, Sapodilla, I think is the name, the English name for chiku.

[A]

Oh, yes, Sapadilla. They actually have an Alfonso mango flavor.

[B]

Rishi, how have you never been to this place together?

[A]

I have never actually been there. I've only had their ice creams. Oh, Sapadilla. Wow. We're really going down like a fruit rabbit hole.

[B]

We're getting to the core.

[A]

To the core. I was just in D.C. on one of my tour stops and my friend Nisha, who I've been friends with since I was 12, came with her kids and they had gone to the farmer's market that day and thought I would be interested in trying pawpaws. And I think I've had Popeyes. There's like one farm that grows them here, but they are more of a southern, east coast sort of southern fruit. And so I was excited. And then the pawpaws were confiscated at the security. But then the next day I went to Cleveland and somebody brought me a pawpaw. I was like, wow, people really want me to have a pawpaw. And that's quite like a custardy, like fleshed fruit with a lot of seeds. But I think, like these types of fruits, one thing that is kind of nice about them and special is that they do have These sort of spoonable textures. And that's true about the cherimoya, too.

[B]

Yeah. And what about pomegranate ice cream? Could you use the pomegranate molasses for that?

[A]

Ooh. You could totally, like, add a swirl of pomegranate molasses into an ice cream, for sure. But I think I would rather just take the pomegranate juice and turn it into, like, a sorbet. That would be delicious. Or if you don't have an ice cream machine, you can just make it into granita, which is just like, you know, you sweeten it to the right amount, and then you freeze it, like, in a baking dish, and then every few hours, you take a fork and stir it up, and then it turns sort of into like, a icy texture.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

And then you could serve a bowl of pomegranate granita with pomegranate arils and a little drizzle of pomegranate molasses. You could just go triple. Pom pom, pom pom.

[B]

One of the reasons why I love the Book of Difficult fruit is because you get to learn not just about new foods, but also new words. You know, like, every time you discover a new food or a new fruit or whatever, a new plant, it's like your vocabulary also grows totally. It's pretty cool.

[A]

Is this leading us into a pun territory? I really am living in a state of fear that you're just gonna spring something on me.

[B]

No. I feel like I had my moment for being crotchety when I suggested the fig leaf underwear. And that's it for this episode.

[A]

And that's it for this episode.

[B]

We made this episode with the help of Zach McNeese, Mary Dolan and Amalia Mourinho, and Mamie Ryan Gold makes our artwork.

[A]

We're a proud member of Radiotopia, a collective of independent podcasts. You can learn more about all the Radiotopia shows at Radiotopia fm.

[B]

And our website is homecooking show where you can find recipes and transcripts for.

[A]

All of our episodes and all our new merch items. I have to say, it's been really cool. Cool to be on tour and see people showing up in the home cooking shirts.

[B]

Oh, that's so nice.

[A]

It's pretty cool.

[B]

You can follow Samin on Instagram at Chamine or you can subscribe to her newsletter on substack@chamine substack.com or you can.

[A]

Follow Rishi on Instagram at Rishi hereaway or subscribe to his [e-mail] Stay healthy, eat well and take care of of each other everyone. And also, I've lost my mind so if you find it, feel free to let me know where it is.

[B]

Thank you so much for listening.

[A]

I'm Samin.

[B]

And I'm Rishi and we'll be home.

[A]

Cooking Radiotopia.

[C]

From PRX.