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Giant poster of a watermelon painting beside my bed; bought it last week-end and I’m in love with it. Unlike my kin Jonathan I’m not obsessed with pineapples, but I’ve been fascinated by watermelons ever since I read this article: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-17/17th-century-watermelons-looked-vastly-different-what-we-eat-today
Of course manmade selected breeding creates all sorts of problems today, one of them being the lack of variety in vegetable and fruit species, but it also makes me marvel at the incredible power of human will. It’s both scary and a bit awesome – plus, of course, the whole web of relationship between humanity, history, nature and food will never cease to wildly interest me.
Look at the comparison of 17th century watermelons (looking more like pumpkins, in structure) and watermelons (full, red and seedless or with way smaller seeds) we have now, all evolved through selection:
Also watermelons are delicious. They remind me of my childhood in Mauritius, and of holidays in Italy (eating fresh and sweet slices of them on top of a hill overlooking the ancient Hippodrome, surrounded by the song of cicadas. Oh yes.)
Basically the watermelon wolf is me, and I’m a huge nerd.
