Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/The melon - Part 2
THE MELON.
II.—ITS VARIETIES.
The fact of the male and female flowers of the order Cucurbitæ growing apart from each other, though upon the same plant, causes great care to be necessary in order to preserve purity of breed, and gourds and cucumbers especially must be banished from the vicinity of melons, since if plants of the same genus as the latter, however differing in species, should be growing in their neighbourhood, the pistilliferous melon-flowers are as likely to become impregnated with pollen from their blossoms, as with that of their own stameniferous ones, and thus some hybrid, and most probably far inferior kind, be produced. It is thus that so many varieties have been created as to have now become almost innumerable, so that though the broad distinctions of widely different varieties are easily recognisable, it has been found quite impossible to reduce sub-varieties to any sort of order, or give determinate descriptions of them. The French writer, Noisette, devoted himself for some years to the cultivation of every kind of melon he could procure, with the intention of publishing drawings and descriptions of them, but was forced at last to give up the attempt in despair, acknowledging that the further he advanced, the harder he found the task. A work of the kind, entitled “Monographie complète du Melon,” has indeed been since published in France by M. Jacquin, but the constancy of the characteristics assigned can never be reckoned on with certainty, since even should the outside of a number of fruits resemble that of the parent from which they sprung, it is very common for the interiors to present great differences, one perhaps having white flesh, another green, and a third red. Noisette regrets that a passion for novelty should have induced growers to encourage a multiplicity of varieties, since, as he says, were the culture limited to about twelve varieties, this number would include every important diversity, while consumers could then much more easily identify and secure whichever kind they might have learned to prefer.
Melons are now generally divided by English cultivators into four sections: the thick-skinned, soon perishing sorts, grouped together under the general name of Cantaloupes; the longer-keeping Winter Melons; Persians; and Water Melons. The type of the first enumerated class was probably the original old-fashioned Musk Melon, characterised by the thick network of grey lines over its surface, and by possessing very little scent, varying in size from 1 lb. to 30 lb. or 40 lb. weight, but being so uncertain in quality that out of half-a-dozen fruits but one perhaps would be found good. This earliest-known sort was almost banished from good gardens on the introduction of superior kinds. One of the first to supersede it, and still one of the most esteemed throughout Europe, though reckoned in America but second-rate, was the melon which claims in a more restricted sense, as the original owner of that name, the title of the Cantaloupe, having been so called from a town of that name, situate about fifteen miles from Rome, and where this fruit has been cultivated ever since the Mithridatic war, having been brought, it is said, by Lucullus in the last century B.C. from Armenia to Italy, and thence taken by Charles VIII. into France. Usually nearly round, and of middling size, though not constant even in these particulars; its exterior, always remarkably rough and irregular, varies much in colour, being sometimes orange mottled with green, sometimes green and black, or some other variegation, the darkest colours being those which are generally preferred; while the flesh also assumes different tints, being in some nearly white, in others orange or pinkish. The diversity of size among melons classed as Cantaloupes is very great, but all are characterised by a more or less rough and thick rind, which considerably reduces the eatable proportion of the fruit, a defect which seems to increase in the larger-growing kinds, as in the old Black Rock Melon, for instance, which often attains a weight of 14 lbs., about three-parts of it, however, being composed of a rugged wall of rind studded with carbuncles, and a mass of seeds within, embedded in the fraction of eatable pulp, small indeed in quantity and very poor in quality.
The Citron, or green-fleshed melon, was brought into France by a monk from Africa, in 1777, and has thence spread into many countries and given birth to numerous varieties. Frederick the Great was so passionately fond of a small melon of this sort, that he could not conquer himself sufficiently to abstain from them even when his health was in danger; for Zimmerman, who attended him in his last illness, finding him suffering severely from indigestion, discovered that he ate three or four of these fruits daily for breakfast, and on remonstrating with him the only reply he could get from the despot was an attempt to make them their own apology, by promising to send him some the next day, that he might taste for himself how excellent they were. It is this Citron melon, too, which is the greatest favourite in America, being one of the finest grown there, and yet peculiarly easy of culture, the climate of the middle and southern States suiting it better than even any part of Europe, so that it is raised as a field crop by market-gardeners, and sold in August, in the markets of New York and Philadelphia, at the price of half-a-dollar for a basket containing nearly a bushel, proving even then one of the most profitable of crops. The warm dry climate of Long Island and New Jersey is specially suited to the culture of melons of any kind, but many other sorts require greater care than the green-fleshed favourite, without compensating for it by any superiority, and it therefore has few rivals. Melons flourish too in California, where, however, they command far higher prices, selling throughout the season (from July to November) at from seventy-five cents to one dollar each. “To those who have never seen melons grown,” says the author of “California and its Resources” (published in 1858), “it will seem simply absurd to say, that confident hopes are entertained of realising from 15,000 to 20,000 dollars from one patch of two acres, belonging to Major Barbour, this present year. But we were assured that 200 to 300 dollars’ worth of melons per day were sold during the first week of the season.”
The distinction which assigns Winter Melons to a separate class, seems due rather to the fruiterer than the botanist, since, irrespective of other peculiarities, any melon which will keep long after gathering, must belong, as of right, to this class. Melons which can be kept till the winter when hung in a dry room, are common in Spain, and the name of one of our best winter fruits, the green Valentia, points to a Spanish origin; while another, the Dampsha, is asserted to be a hybrid Persian.
A very distinct variety, comparatively recently introduced into Europe, is the Persian Melon, the seeds of which were sent here direct from Persia by our ambassador there, Mr. Willock, in 1824, and were first sown in the gardens of the Horticultural Society, where they produced at once ten different varieties. Though requiring in their native country no further attention than a regular and abundant supply of water, mostly obtained by irrigation, the meadows in which the plants are grown being flooded so that the roots are kept absolutely under water, yet they are found elsewhere to need great care, and on this account, though introduced into America and attaining great perfection there when duly tended, they are very rarely seen, Transatlantic impatience grudging generally the expenditure of so much assiduity. In England it is by no means easy to secure the requisite combination of a wet warm soil and a dry air, the covering used to confine the heat tending also to cause general moisture by producing evaporation: but in spite of these difficulties, our gardeners contrive to rear them in great perfection, and as some may be eaten as soon as gathered, and others must be kept for months, even quite into winter, they are obtainable during a great portion of the year. In Persia they attain such magnitude that, according to Malte Brun, three or four of them form as heavy a load as a man can carry; but though their dimensions here are far more moderate,—the sweet melon of Ispahan, which is one of the largest varieties, seldom exceeding ten pounds in weight,—their skin is so much thinner than that of other kinds, that they afford nearly twice as much flesh as those do, even when no larger in size, besides being peculiarly sweet and rich in flavour. Not needing such powerful sunshine as is required to penetrate the thick hides of their pachyderm brethren, they can be ripened much later than the latter.
The plant which produces the Water Melon is of a different species (Melos citrullus), and may be easily distinguished from the varieties of Melos cucurbita by its deeply cut leaves, while the fruit itself shows an equally marked distinction in its smooth green surface. Roundish or oval in form, it is usually rather large sized, sometimes measuring a foot and a half in length; the flesh is white shading into red or yellow towards the centre, and the seeds are very dark brown, or black. As it could not be raised in this country except artificially by the aid of glass, and Parkinson, who wrote in 1629, is the first English writer on such subjects who gives directions for its culture by means of hot-beds and bell-glasses, it is not supposed to have been introduced very long before that time; and in a climate where heat rarely becomes very oppressive, its watery insipidity has never been very highly appreciated; but though far inferior to other melons in richness of flavour, it is yet more prized in very sultry climates on account of its abundant flow of deliciously cool juice, the central pulp being, when ripe, almost in a fluid state. Identified with the “melons” mentioned in Scripture, water melons are said to have originated in the Levant, but are found abundantly (and are probably indigenous) in India and China; and, requiring very little care or attention, immense fields of them are raised annually in the warmer States of America; in Southern Europe they are both common and popular, and in Africa, in the words of Husselquest, “This fruit serves the Egyptians for meat, drink, and physic. It is eaten in abundance during the season even by the richer sort of people; but the common people, on whom Providence has bestowed nothing but poverty and patience, scarcely eat anything but these during their season, and are obliged to put up with worse fare at other times.” It is one particular and rather rarer kind, the juice of which, when the fruit is full or almost over-ripe, that is administered in fevers as the only medicine the poorer Egyptian has within his power.
Later travellers give similar accounts of their great abundance and utility in Egypt, one recent writer in particular stating that “water melons hold the first rank among Egyptian fruits,” and that, though constituting a chief item in the diet of the poorest classes, they are also usually seen at the table of people of rank, it being the custom to eat slices of water melon at dinner in the intervals between each different dish. He adds that “they certainly come to great perfection in this country, and, as I myself experienced, may be eaten freely in any quantities without danger.” This, however, is by no means the case in cooler climates, for they are said to cause worms if indulged in constantly, and more serious consequences have occasionally ensued from eating them to excess, sudden death having even been known to follow an imprudence of this kind. The whole melon tribe indeed are scarcely to be reckoned perfectly wholesome, some constitutions being quite unable even to taste them with impunity, though on the majority of people they produce no bad effect when partaken of with moderation. As a general rule, it has been found that the hotter the weather the better are melons, and the less danger is there in indulging in them freely. In Paris, where they rarely appear at the dessert, being mostly eaten as a hors d’œuvre with salt, which facilitates their digestion, as the temperature of the season becomes lower towards the 20th of September, the sale of them is forbidden by the police. They are less used than perhaps any other fruit in any culinary process, but in the south of France preserves, more or less good, are sometimes made of them, the best being that known as Ecorce verte de citron. The seeds—reckoned cooling, diuretic and anodyne—were formerly used in medicine for purposes for which sweet almonds are now preferred; and, pierced and strung on wire or thread, they may be formed into pretty bracelets and other ornaments.
A near, but very humble relative of the aristocratic melon is our common pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), more familiar to many as the fairy chariot of Cinderella than as an article of consumption, and, as it sometimes attains the size of four feet in circumference, it may, on the memorable occasion of having been thus appropriated, have needed at least very little enlargement to fit it for the accommodation of so slender a sylph. A far hardier plant than the melon, in a rich soil and warm situation, the pumpkin, or, as it was formerly, and we are told still ought to be called, the pompion, grows luxuriantly and ripens its fruit perfectly in the open air in England; and in its favourite situation, trailing over a manure heap, it is not only useful in assisting to decompose crude material, but veiling the unsightly mass with its large handsome leaves, can turn an eyesore into almost an ornament. Remarkably rapid in its growth, when well supplied with water, it will form shoots forty or fifty feet long, so that a single plant is capable of extending, in the course of a season, over an eighth of an acre of ground. The fruit occupied, says Soyer, “a prominent place in the precious catalogue of Roman dainties, being stewed or boiled in oil or water, and served with various seasonings;” and growing abundantly in the warmer parts of each quarter of the globe, it is still much used as food in many countries, though mostly as furnishing an article of sustenance to the poor, rather than of pleasure for the luxuriant. It seems to have been earlier introduced into this country than either of its allies, the cucumber or the melon, and it is indeed credibly supposed that it was the “melon” of early English writers, to whom the true fruit of that name was unknown, or who were accustomed to distinguish it as the “musk melon.”
Gerard, however, speaks of “pompions,” which are never eaten raw, but mixed with apples in pies, a use which he justly condemns, or boiled in milk or fried in butter. To the latter process it is still often subjected on the Continent, where too it is yet more commonly made into soups and stews, a system we should do well to adopt here, where the worst method of disposing of it is now almost the only one prevalent; since soupe à la citrouille—very easily made by merely stewing sliced pumpkin in milk, enriched with a little butter or gravy, and seasoned with pepper and salt[1]—is a dish few would not relish and find vastly preferable to the insipid preparation known as pumpkin pie. If, however, that delicacy be desired, perhaps the best mode of obtaining it is the one followed by the villagers in some parts of England, who cut a hole in the side of their pumpkins, scoop out the seeds and stringy part, then stuffing the cavity with apples and spice, bake the whole, and eat the case and its contents together. Plainly boiled in water, the pumpkin may be eaten, like its relative the vegetable marrow, as a vegetable, but the tender tops of the shoots of the plant, boiled like greens, are superior to the fruit for this purpose. In judging of the latter, mere size and weight carry the day, for there being very little difference of quality in a fruit having at its best so little pretensions to flavour, quantity becomes the chief consideration. In this respect the mammoth gourd, or large American pumpkin, towers supreme over the mightiest of its brethren, weighing sometimes over two hundred pounds, and which, exceeding in its vast dimensions the requirements of any single family consumption, is mostly sold in London shops in slices at the price of about twopence per pound.
Clumsily bulky in its huge growth, yet offering but few charms to the taster, the pumpkin early furnished a comparison for persons whose heads were larger than their intellects, and which it would seem “the world would not willingly let die,” since it has survived from the time of Tertullian to the present day, the initial letter only slightly hardening when we now apply to a thick-headed clown the appellation of a bumpkin.
- ↑ The most economical recipe for this excellent soup is as follows: 1 lb. pumpkin sliced and boiled in water till soft enough to pulp through a colander into a half-pint of hot milk; season, stir till smooth, give one boil, and then serve.