Watermelons
seasonal.substack.com
seasonal.substack.com
Wait a second, I thought it was the other way around, i.e. I thought that "cousins" of watermelons such as cucumber, squash or zucchini were botanically fruits but we ate them as vegetables. Otherwise, how come that we call them "fruiting vegetables"? Can someone with more knowledge than me, explain this?
Fruits have a specific definition: the seed-bearing body of a plant produced by the ovary after flowering. I.e. if you have a flowering plant, the “fruit” is the part that contains the seeds.
With fungi we eat only the fruiting body, but nobody calls them “fruit” except in the superclass sense (“fruit of the land”)
The fruiting body, which is not fruit, doesn't have seeds. They have spores, I think.
I only even remember this because of an argument I had many years ago regarding whether a tomato was a vegetable or fruit. I chose the veggie side, but had no real evidence. Come to find out, after researching, the Supreme Court agreed.
It's all rather silly, honestly, but have a read for yourself on the background and decision.
I think it’s an important distinction because people using the term “berry” almost always are using it in a culinary context and not a botanical context.
No one wants a pie with fresh “aggregate accessory fruits”, just as much as no one would think it’s correct to call an eggplant tomato pie a dessert with “fresh berries”.
Does anyone else remember when Congress told everyone that pizza was a vegetable? Haha. Good times.
As I understand it, the issue was whether or not you could count a pizza towards your vegetable quota. The argument came down to the nutritional content of the tomato sauce on the pizza; nutritionally, this was very similar to the requirements for other things that can be classified as vegetables, and so one portion of pizza was deemed to also count as one portion of vegetables.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-eitsutpOc
>Petey Greene - How to Eat Watermelon (Enhanced): In this clip from civil rights activist Petey Greene's Washington DC television program in the Spring of 1982, Greene explains how to eat watermelon. Utterly bizarre. Also, pointers on eating corn and fried chicken.
Relevant comments:
>"man, some people just can't see the message. he's litterally saying 'watermelon is delicious, you're a fool if you change yourself because of what other people might think'"
>"I dont think people got the message he delivered. It was kinda about the watermelon but also more about how blacks are embarrassed to be themselves after so much stereotypes for doing things the way our people were accustomed to and for the same people(whites) we r trying to negate this stereotype to theyre "eating watermelon fred chicken and corn on the cob" the same way we shame our own people for being stereotyped for."
>"I pledge to live my life with the same passion as this man and his love for watermelon"
Check out his bio and the films based on his amazing life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petey_Greene
>Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, and during the subsequent riots that erupted throughout the United States, Greene made statements on air that were credited with helping quell the riots in Washington, D.C.
Talk To Me (2007) - Official Trailer (HD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh7IkEL7Des
Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene (Trailer)
On the other hand, watermelons are definitely fruits, in both the botanical and culinary sense.
This is reminds me of this video: [No Such Thing As A Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhwcEvMJz1Y)
Something else I’ve noticed is that you basically can’t find normal seeded watermelons anymore. Do stores and growers not produce them anymore because they don’t sell? I miss how much better those tasted as well, and their shape. It’s interesting how the demand for certain types of produce in areas can make it basically impossible to get a variety. Most grocery stores now carry the same types of produce in the US, it makes for rather boring cooking (ignoring specialty stores and co-ops that are hard to find outside of cities)
It's because you now live 1,000 miles away from where they were grown. Fruit that needs to survive that much travel isn't going to taste very good because it needs to be harvested early and it needs to not be bruised when it finally gets to the store.
Nearly all your fresh fruit is going to suck compared to what you got in CA. The exceptions are going to be apples and cherries.
It takes exactly the same effort and time to pack something for 100 miles as for 1,000 miles.
But there is a difference! Stuff shipped a long way costs more in shipping, so they'll ship the best stuff, because the can charge the most for it.
So actually far away places get the best produce, and CA is left with the cheaper stuff that isn't worth selling far away.
This is not always true. If the "best" is delicate or easily damaged they sell it locally at a big discount and ship the tougher ones further. A good example is lobster; the best is sold cheaper near where it is caught while the oldest, toughest and most durable is shipped around the world at a huge premium.
The best lobster is shipped - the only benefit of being local is lower prices, because you don't have to pay for shipping.
I dunno what's going on but it's a bummer.
We can still get them in eg Singapore just fine.
I understand climate change is a perpetual issue, but that doesn't mean we can't adjust and even thrive.
I'm not sure about the situation in Israel. I know that Australia had some very good experience with water markets that helped them grow their agricultural productivity despite long droughts.
The amounts you need for drinking (or even for flushing your toilet) are relatively small by comparison.
And, of course, the way to help poor people is not to forbid markets for everyone, but to just give them money.
The climate is going to be getting wackier and wackier in future. I suspect we'll be seeing some pretty far out ideas becoming fact quite quickly. Large melons grown outdoors in British soil may not be the strangest. If this takes off, then Benny Hill's (RIP) spiritual successor will have material for years.
Back in the mid '80s I remember scrumping a few melons from a nearby plot in Cyprus. We lived in the WESBA (near Paphos). Teenage boys are pretty close to the bottom of the list of pests that afflict watermelons, so I don't feel too guilty. A freshly picked melon is a wonderous thing and there is so much water in them.
Now I really come to think about it, the more important melons become. The honey dew version must have quite a lot of sugar in it as well as moisture, again another useful trait.
We probably need a lot more melons. Ooo-er missis.
Each water melon only stores a few litres of water. That's not a lot to make a difference.
AFAIK there is no botanical notion of vegetable. It's a culinary/food term, which should just mean "edible plant matter". Which would make culinary fruit just a subset of vegetables. But for some reason popular usage dictates that the category "vegetable" excludes some sweet tasting fruit, staple starches and some other things.
Or just use your teeth?
In any case, if you do want to have them juiced, I suggest you add a bit of mint and salt.
I mean, water underground is usually contained on a certain level (or levels), e.g. if there's a clay soil layer, then almost always there's water above it, because clay is hardly permeable by water.
We could make an artificial clay layer (or plastic or whatever that's hard for water to get through), at a depth of a few feet or meters. That way, water would evaporate way less than with open surface irrigation/watering.
Was this ever common to do, using watermelons as a potable water supply?