By Joel Denker
“The natives select them by striking one melon after another with a hatchet, and applying the tongue to the gashes.” The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa, whom the missionary David Livingstone observed in the 1850s, were choosing tsammes, the wild ancestors of the watermelon. A source of survival for the African foragers, the wandering gourd would emerge centuries later as a hot weather refreshment in America. Kin to squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, and other members of the cucurbit family, a group of trailing vines, the watermelon sucks up water through its extensive root system.
The melons, which still grow around desert oases and watering holes, burgeoned after heavy rains. “In years when more than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are literally covered with these melons,” Livingston remarked. The wild melons, about the size of grapefruit and both sweet and bitter, were saviors in the parched land. The drought-resistant gourds prospered, when other vegetables would wilt. The water-saturated melon (90% of its weight) quenched the Bushmen’s thirst and sustained them on their nomadic treks. An auspicious marker, a melon vine in the desert was usually a sign that water was nearby.
These “botanical canteens,” as they have been called, have long served a wide range of needs of the hunter-gatherers. The watermelon itself is easily stored or can be cut into strips, which are hung in trees to dry and saved for food to feed both tribe members and livestock. Watermelons also made handy drinking and eating cups and other containers.
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To learn more about watermelons, see The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat, coming in October from Rowman & Littlefield: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442248861/The-Carrot-Purple-and-Other-Curious-Stories-of-the-Food-We-Eat.
