[Sca-cooks] Watermelon mentions: 1

[Johnna Holloway]

I rather think we can trust the work of Professor Jules Janock which is why I included the abstracts from him regarding watermelons. He is the internationally well known expert in Horticulture from Purdue. We have never found anything wrong with his assertions in the past whenever his work has been brought up. https://ag.purdue.edu/hla/cv/JanickCV.pdf

Which NIH article are you referencing? There have been several mentioned.

Johnna

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 26, 2015, at 9:19 PM, JIMCHEVAL at aol.com wrote:
> 
> This is all very interesting Johnna and I certainly appreciate your taking  
> the time to dig it up. But I hope it's clear that very little of it refers 
> to  watermelon, or specifically expands Dalby's references.
> 
> The Pliny reference is especially mystifying, since it cites chapters  (69–
> 70) that go beyond any count I see for book 19 - the last chapter is  62:
> 
> _https://books.google.com/books?id=IUoMAAAAIAAJ&dq=inauthor%3Apliny%20cucurb
> ita&pg=PA203#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
> (https://books.google.com/books?id=IUoMAAAAIAAJ&dq=inauthor:pliny%20cucurbita&pg=PA203#v=onepage&q&f=false) 
> 
> One thing I've noticed in looking around on this question is that more than 
> one writer posits a possible interpretation of a text, and then they or 
> others  treat that as settled, rather than provisory. For instance, some have 
> cited  Pliny's reference to a type of "cucumber" as referring to a melon 
> (not a  watermelon). Yet, first of all, Pliny says that this is shaped like a 
> quince  ("mali cotonei effigie"). Which is hardly true of most melons, beyond 
> their  being round (but much bigger). And another writer suggests that this 
> refers to a  pumpkin.
> 
> The NIH article also makes the rather strange claim that Anthimus must have 
> been using "melone" to refer to a watermelon because he says to mix the 
> seeds  with the meat. But first of all, you can do that with a melon (I've 
> done it; not  pleasant especially, but it works). More to the point, why WOULD 
> you do it with  a watermelon? The seeds are already embedded in the flesh. 
> You have to do it  with a melon because the seeds are in a separate seed 
> cavity.
> 
> Archaeology certainly shows, as it turns out, that watermelons at least  
> existed in Gaul in the early centuries of the Christian era. But I still don't 
> see any clear signs that the four writers first cited were referring to 
> this  fruit.
> 
> 
> Jim  Chevallier
> _www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/) 
> 
>