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Watermelon: A Fruit for the Gods (and the dry desert) by Sarah Stoner
"Watermelon is the chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat." – Mark Twain There’s one fruit I reserve only for summer. I might indulge in banana on a gray fall day or an orange coming out of winter. Of course, we eat berries all spring. But watermelon. Watermelon is one fruit that seems not, at least for me, to cross beyond the cooling boundaries of a hot summer day.
Do you have a peak watermelon moment memory? Mine is from my early 20s, in a motel of all places, when my brother, father, and I had traveled to Florida. How we ended up with a giant watermelon in our room, with the door open and hot Florida air blowing through, I don’t recall. I vividly remember the cracked open melon, a huge bowl of juicy red framed with bright green, and that my brother and I had spoon after spoon of unlimited cold, refreshing watermelon. It was like a trough of ice water but in food form.
in this issue
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Election Results ∙ pg 2
The ancient Kalahari people were on to something. Some 5,000 years before that hot day indulging in an icy cold Florida-grown watermelon, the ancestor to today’s watermelon grew wild—and still grows wild—on a vine in southern Africa. The indigenous Kalahari, living in the interior plains that stretch across today’s Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, used this tough drought-tolerant watermelon as a source of water. Aptly named, watermelon is 92% water. Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus)
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4% Friday Applications ∙ pg 3 Ice Cream is Always a Good Idea ∙ pg 4 Breitenbush: After the Fire ∙ pg 7 Summertime Wines ∙ pg 11
Not Digging It
Transformation
New & Notable
