Pomegranate seeds add flair and tradition to a Rosh Hashanah salad

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, has many wonderful foods associated with it. Apples, honey, beef brisket, noodle kugel — and shining on this list are pomegranates, that one-of-a-kind beautiful, mythical, symbolic and even Biblical fruit.

In the Sephardic tradition, pomegranates are celebrated as part of the Rosh Hashanah meal as a symbol of abundance, knowledge and righteousness. The fruit’s numerous seeds led some to say that the seeds corresponded to the 613 commandments of the Torah.