Nothing sums up to the taste of summer like a juicy melon. These fleshy fruits are great with savoury foods and are deliciously refreshing blended in juices and smoothies. Watermelons are more than 90 per cent water and their sweet juice makes them the perfect thirst quencher. Giant watermelons are perfect for barbeques. Watermelon is loaded with antioxidants and good source of vitamins and minerals. The watermelon was believed to be first cultivated in Egypt. It was a very sought after fruit in Egypt. It is thought that the watermelon was so heavily sought after in Egypt because of its high water content. Many people probably depended on watermelon as a primary water source. I enjoy eating this exotic fruit, and as a matter of fact, bought it today and enjoyed. It tastes nice when served chilled.
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History
David Livingstone, an explorer of Africa, described watermelon as abundant in the Kalahari desert, where it is believed to have originated. There, the ancestral melon grows wild and is known as the Tsamma melon (Citrullus lanatus var tastius).[citation needed] It is also known in Zimbabwe as 'nwiwa, mwiwa or iswe'. It is recognizable by its pinnatifid leaves and prolific fruit, up to 100 melons on a single vine.[citation needed] For this reason it is a popular source of water in the diet of the indigenous people. The flesh is similar to the rind of a watermelon and is often known as citron melon (distinct from the actual citron, of the citrus family); it is used for making jam and other preserves, and because of its high content of pectin is popular as a constituent of jams, jellies, and other gelled preserves. It has established itself in the wild in Baja California.
It is not known when the plant was first cultivated, but Zohary and Hopf note evidence of its cultivation in the Nile Valley from at least as early as the second millennium BC. Finds of the characteristically large seed are reported in Twelfth dynasty sites; numerous watermelon seeds were recovered from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.[1]
By the 10th century AD, watermelons were being cultivated in China, which is today the world's single largest watermelon producer. By the 13th century, Moorish invaders had introduced the fruit to Europe; and, according to John Mariani's The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, "watermelon" made its first appearance in an English dictionary in 1615.
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