WATERMELON! WATERMELON!

As summer quickly approaches us, here in the states, we are all salivating for that juicy, bright red treat… watermelon! Appropriately named, the large melon is 90% water, which is why we love it during those hot days spent playing in the pool.

While Americans enjoy their watermelon medium sized, with lighted green stripes, either seedless or with seeds watermelon tastes around the world are as varied as the people.

Travel past San Diego and you’ll find extra large, oblong lemons in Mexico. Buy some triangles from a street vendor are you’ll likely get a kick in the tongue! Mexicans like to season their watermelon with a spice mixture of chili powder, salt and lime zest. The heat and the salt only bring out the juiciness of the melon and the lime zest being a bright, freshness to the mix.

Take a plane ride over to Spain and smaller watermelons with dark green stripes will be most common. In Japan, farmers are creating watermelon art by shaping the fruit into shapes like squares and hearts. And while theses melons are fun to look at they’re actually inedible! Down under, in Australia, the watermelons are dark green with no stripes at all!

Before the watermelon became a world traveler the melons began taking root (sorry for the pun) in West Africa, according to archeologists. Seeds from the juice water logged fruit were found at a 5,000-year-old settlement in Libya.

Around the same time the Egyptians were demonstrating their love for the watermelon with paintings. Seeds and paintings were found in tombs dating back 4,000 years including King Tut. Bur their love of watermelon might have had less to do with the sweet taste and more to do with the key factor in the reason for its name… water!

Now if I only had a knife big enough to cut into it!