
As best we know we humans are the only species to create layers of significance and overlay them on the world around us. We do that using a combination of imagination and memory.
Perhaps one of the simplest examples is when we associate a certain food, a particular flavour or scent, with an event or experience. It might be a single powerful experience, either joyful or traumatic. For example the day we met someone we love, or, perhaps the day someone we love fell ill, or died. Or it can be one of those repeated experiences, like something which we came to associate with our grandmother, or with schooldays.
One of the most famous examples of this is in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past….the passage about that little French cake, the “Madeleine”.
In some cases the significance becomes much more than personal. It becomes cultural, shared by millions.
In the gardens of the Royal Palace at La Granja I saw this sculpture of a pomegranate. Is this our most significant fruit? Does any other kind of fruit have a city named after it? “Grenada”, the Spanish word for pomegranate.
In many cultures over many centuries the pomegranate became the symbol of abundance and fertility and has featured in many works of art and rituals.
Has any other fruit achieved such prominence as the pomegranate? I’ve been racking my brain but I can’t think of any.
However, at a personal, or a family level, are there any other fruits which are significant and important to you?
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