[Sca-cooks] watermelons in ancient times

[Johnna Holloway]

Earlier this evening, I came across this interesting explanation As to why the descriptions of watermelons differ and why there were problems in growing them… from

Ann Bot. 2007 Dec; 100(7): 1441–1457. 
Published online 2007 Oct 10. doi:  10.1093/aob/mcm242
PMCID: PMC2759226
The Cucurbits of Mediterranean Antiquity: Identification of Taxa from Ancient Images and Descriptions
Jules Janick,1,* Harry S. Paris,2 and  David C. Parrish3

"Watermelons, Citrullus lanatus, originated in south-western Africa (Bates and Robinson, 1995) and were anciently cultivated in Egypt, given the age of at least one depiction (Fig. 2A) and the longing of the Children of Israel for the avattihim they knew from Egypt (Numbers 11 : 5). Nonetheless, there are relatively few images of watermelons from ancient Egypt (Andrews, 1958). Even from the time of the Roman Empire, there are few depictions of watermelons, and they are not mentioned nearly as much as the fruits of Cucumis melo or Lagenaria siceraria in Roman and Jewish writings, apparently reflecting lesser appreciation for these fruits. This might seem odd, at first, because watermelons had the advantage over the others of being sweet. On the other hand, watermelons can cross spontaneously with non-sweet watermelons, known as citrons, that are used for pickling and preserves. Worse, watermelons can hybridize with the naturally occurring bitter colocynth, and it was almost unavoidable that these two often grew in near proximity to one another. Hybridizations with the citron and with the colocynth would have resulted in the frequent occurrence of non-sweet or bitter watermelons, and thus limited their popularity."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759226/

Johnnae