[Sca-cooks] watermelons

[Terry Decker]

"The principal text in Pliny which MAY refer to a melon (and I  forwarded it 
myself early on) may also refer to a pumpkin;"

Pliny writes, " cum magnitudine excessere, pepones vocantur."  or "when 
these are very large they are "pepones"."  "Pepones" translates to "large 
melons" or "pumpkins."  From various sources you can find that the word is 
used to refer to large round curcubits and the precise usage is dependent 
upon the time and place used.  Pumpkin in the modern usage is ruled out by 
being a large, round New World cucurbit.

While I agree it is difficult to demonstrate a continuous knowledge of a 
specific foodstuff, it is also worth noting absence of evidence is not 
evidence of absence.   The watermelon appears to have been well known around 
the Mediterranean from Antiquity into early Medieval.  It shows up in Roman 
mosaics from the 6th Century BCE thru the 5th Century CE.  There is a hiatus 
in images until about 1300 when an accurate illustration appears in the 
Tractus de herbis.  Maimonides references Syrian watermelons in the 12th 
Century as does the Andalusian physician Abu al-Kahyr al-Ishbili (11/12th 
Centuries).  Watermelon seeds have been discovered in Medieval Hungarian 
sites, one dating to the 12/13th Centuries.  I suspect that watermelon (and 
other melons) were grown where they could grow throughout the Medieval 
period.

Bear