Pumpkins & Melons

Pumpkin

Pumpkin, one of the common names for a genus of flowering plants that are characteristically spreading vines with showy yellow-orange flowers, large lobed leaves, and long twisting tendrils. The pumpkin genus is native to warmer parts of America and is an economically important member of the gourd family.

Pumpkins, squash, and some kinds of gourd are the fruits of four different species of this genus. Summer squash is eaten when the fruit is immature. Winter squash is derived from all four species and is eaten after the fruit has matured. Winter squash may be stored for winter consumption, hence the name. All four species also produce pumpkins, which are similar to winter squash. They are used mainly as pie filling and as jack-o'-lanterns.

Scientific classification:

• Pumpkins make up the genus Cucurbita of the family Cucurbitaceae.
• The four different species of the genus producing pumpkins, squash, and some kinds of gourd are classified as Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita moschata, and Cucurbita pepo.
• Summer squash is from Cucurbita pepo.

"Pumpkin" Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Melons

Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea

The order Cucurbitaceae (the sole representative of which in the British Islands is the familiar hedge-climbing, red-berried Bryony) contains many genera of economic importance: Cucumis affords cucumber and melon; Cucurbita, pumpkin and marrow; to the genus Lagenaria belong the gourds; the well known bath-loofah is formed of the closelynetted vascular bundles in the fruit of Luffa aegyptica, another member of the order, the unripe fruit itself being used as a pickle by the Arabians; Sechium edule, a tropical American species, is largely cultivated for its edible fruit, Choko; Citrullus vulgaris is the Water Melon, which serves the Egyptians both as food, drink and physic; Citrullus Colecynthis furnishes the drug called Celocynth, and equally valuable medicinally is Ecbalium Elaterium, the Squirting Cucumber.

MELON, COMMON

• Botanical: Cucumis melo (LINN.)
• Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea
• Synonym: Musk Melon.

Habitat: The Melon is a native of South Asia-from the foot of the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, where it grows wild - but is cultivated in the temperate and warm regions of the whole world.

Description: It is an annual, trailing herb, with large palmately-lobed leaves and bears tendrils, by which it is readily trained over trellises. Its flowers (which have bellshaped corollas, deeply five-lobed) are either male or female, both kinds being borne on the one plant. The male flowers have three stamens, the ovary in the female flowers, three cells.

The many varieties of Melon show great diversity in foliage and still more in the size and shape of the fruit, which in some kinds is as small as an olive, in others as large as the Gourd (Cucurbita maxima). Some are globular, others egg-shaped, spindle-shaped or serpent-like, the outer skin smooth or netted, ribbed or furrowed, and variously coloured; the flesh, white, green or orange when ripe, scented or scentless, sweet or insipid, some bitter and even nauseous.

History: The cultivation of the Melon in Asia is of very ancient date. It was grown by the Egyptians, and the Romans and Greeks were familiar with it. Pliny describes Melons as Pepones, Columella as Melones. It began to be extensively cultivated in France in 1629. Gerarde in his Herball (1597) figured and described several kinds of Melons or Pompions, but included gourds under the same name.

The Common Melon was commonly known as the Musk Melon. To grow it to perfection, the Melon requires artificial heat, being grown on hot beds of fermenting manure, with an atmospheric temperature of 75 degrees, rising with sunheat to 80 degrees.

Medicinal Action and Uses: The root of the Common Melon is purgative, and in large doses (7 to 10 grains) is said to be a certain emetic, the active and bitter principle having been called Melon-emetin.

The MELON-TREE, so-called, is the PAPAW, or Papaya (Carica Papaya, Linn.), a native of tropical America, where it is everywhere cultivated for its edible fruit and digestive properties. The dried juice is largely used in the treatment of indigestion, under various trade names, 'Papain,' a white powder, being administered in all digestive disorders where albuminoid substances pass away undigested.

MELON, CANTALOUP

• Botanical: Cucumis Cantalupensis (HABERL.)
• Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea

The Cantaloups (Cucumis Cantalupensis, Haberl., so called from a place near Rome where it was long cultivated) is grown by the market gardeners round Paris and other parts of France, and has its origin in Persia and the neighbouring Caucasian region. It was first brought to Rome from Armenia in the sixteenth century. The netted species probably also originally came from Persia.

MELON, DUDAIM

• Botanical: Cucumis dudaim
• Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea
• Synonym: Queen Anne's Pocket Melon.

The Dudaim Melon (Cucunis dudaim), Queen Anne's Pocket Melon, as it has been called, is also a native of Persia. It produces a fruit variegated with green and orange and oblong green spots of varying size. When fully ripe, it becomes yellow and then whitish. It has a very fragrant, vinous, musky smell, and a whitish, flaccid, insipid pulp. Dudaim is the Hebrew name of the fruit.

MELON, SERPENT

• Botanical: Cucumis flexuosum (LINN.)
• Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea
• Synonym: Snake Cucumber.

Cucumis flexuosum (Linn.) is the Serpent Melon, or Snake Cucumber. It grows to a great length and may be used either raw or pickled.

The 'Cucumber' of the Scriptures (Isaiah i. 8) is considered to have been Cucumis chate, the Hairy Cucumber, a kind of wild Melon, which produces a fruit, the flesh of which is almost of the same substance as the Common Melon, its taste being somewhat sweet and as cool as the Water Melon.

It is common both in Arabia and in Egypt, where a dish is prepared from the ripe fruit. Peter Forskäl, a contemporary of Linnaeus, in his work on the plants of Egypt (Flora aegyptiaco-arabica, 1775), describes its preparation. The pulp is broken and stirred by means of a stick thrust through a hole cut at the umbilicus of the fruit: the hole is then closed with wax, and the fruit, without removing it from its stem, is buried in a little pit; after some days, the pulp is found to be converted into an agreeable liquor.

MELON, WATER

• Botanical: Citrullus vulgaris (LINN.)
• Family: N.O. Cucurbitacea
• Parts Used: Seeds, juice.

Melons are a staple and refreshing fruit in Egypt and Palestine, especially the Water Melon (Citrullus vulgaris, Linn.), a native of tropical Africa and the East Indies, which grows to a great size, even attaining 30 lb. in weight. It refreshes the thirsty as well as the hungry. It has a smooth rind, and though generally oblong and about a foot and a half in length, varies much in form and colour, the flesh being either red or pale, the seeds black or reddish. There is a succession of crops from May to November.

For its cool and refreshing fruit, it has been cultivated since the earliest times in Egypt and the East and was known in Southern Europe and Asia before the Christian era. The banks of the Burlus Delta lake east of the Rosetta channel of the Nile Deita, are noted for their Water Melons, which are yellow within, and come into season after those grown on the banks of the Nile.

Of the plants found in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, in Bechuanaland, the most remarkable is the Water Melon, present in abundance, which supplies both man and beast with water.

Medicinal Action and Uses:

• The fruit should be eaten cautiously by Europeans, especially when taken in the heat of the day, but it is much used in the tropics and in Italy. In Egypt, it is practically the only medicine the common people use in fevers; when it is ripe, or almost putrid, they collect the juice and mix it with rosewater and a little sugar.
• The seeds have been employed to a considerable extent as a domestic remedy in strangury and other affections of the urinary passages, and are regarded as having diuretic properties. The Russian peasants use them for dropsy and hepatic congestion, also for intestinal catarrh.
• The Four Greater Cold Seeds of the old materia medica were the seeds of the Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), the Gourd (C. maxima), the Melon and the Cucumber. These were bruised and rubbed up with water to form an emulsion, which was much used in catarrhal affections, disorders of the bowels and urinary passages, fever, etc.
• The seeds of both the Water Melon and the Common or Musk Melon are good vermicides, having much the same constituents as those of the PUMPKIN (sometimes known as the Melon Pumpkin), which have long been a popular worm remedy and in recent years have also been used for tapeworm.

Constituents:

Pumpkin seeds contain 30 per cent or more of a reddish, fixed oil, traces of a volatile oil, together with proteids, sugar, starch and an acrid resin, to which the anthelmintic properties appear to be due, though recent experiments have failed to isolate any substance of physiological activity, either from the kernels or shells of the seeds. The value of the drug is said to be due to its mechanical effect. The seeds are employed when quite ripe and must not be used if more than a month old.

A mixture is made by beating up 2 OZ. of the seeds with as much sugar and milk or water added to make a pint, and this mixture is taken fasting, in three doses, one every two hours, castor oil being taken a few hours after the last dose. An infusion of the seeds, prepared by pouring a pint of boiling water on 1 OZ. of seeds, has likewise been used in urinary complaints.

The Pumpkin or Pompion (its older name, of which Pumpkin is a corruption) is a native of the Levant. Many varieties are cultivated in gardens, both for ornament and also for culinary use.

It is a useful plant to the American backwoods-farmer, yielding both in the ripe and unripe condition a valuable fodder for his cattle and pigs, being frequently planted at intervals among the maize that constitutes his chief crop. The larger kinds acquire a weight of 40-80 lb., but smaller varieties are in more esteem for garden culture.

In England, Pumpkins were formerly called English Melons, which was popularly corrupted to Millions. They are used cut up in soups and make excellent pies, either alone or mixed with other fruit, and their pulp is also utilized as a basis by jam manufacturers, as it takes the flavour of any fruit juice mixed with it, and adds bulk without imparting any flavour of its own.

The SQUASHES, which have such extensive culinary use in America, are a variety of the Pumpkin (C. melopepo), and another familiar member of the genus, C. evifera, a variety of C. pepo, is the Vegetable Marrow.

While small and green the Pumpkin may be eaten like the Marrow.

Botanical.com: A Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve

Gothic Gardening: Ye Olde Gothick Herball
Of Pumpkins

Most people have heard the legend of the Jack O'Lantern; nevermind that originally there were no pumpkins in Europe and this legend must be a recent one.

Jack, a blacksmith, was drinking one night in a pub and ran into the Devil. Jack offered the Devil his soul in exchange for a drink, so the Devil turned himself into a sixpence that Jack could use to pay the bartender. Jack put the sixpence in his pocket instead, and the Devil could not escape because Jack has a cross in his pocket. Jack made the Devil promise not to take his soul for ten years before he would release him. Ten years later Jack and the Devil met on a country road. Jack asked the Devil to help him get an apple off a tree, and then he would go peacefully. The Devil agreed, since he figured he had nothing to lose, and hopped up on Jack's shoulders to grab the apple. Jack quickly pulled out his knife and cut a cross in the trunk of the tree, which trapped the Devil up there. Jack then made the Devil promise never to claim Jack's soul.

When Jack finally died, Heaven wouldn't take him because of his sinful life. However, when he went down to Hell, the Devil also turned him away, because he had promised never to take Jack's soul. Jack asked where he was supposed to go, and the Devil told him to go back where he came from, and since Jack pleaded for something to light his way, the Devil threw a live coal at him. Jack put the coal inside a turnip he was eating so that the wind would not blow it out. Ever since, Jack has been doomed to wander in darkness with his lantern until "Judgment Day."

Jack of the lantern became known as the symbol of a damned soul.

The custom of the Jack O'Lantern has its roots in 5th century Ireland, where the people would light candles inside of turnips to scare away spirits. They believed that on Samhain, which was the last night of their year, those who had died that year could return to haunt the living, as well as fairies wanting to wreak mischief. The lights inside the carved turnips were supposed to scare the spirits and fairies away.

A myth from the Taino people of Puerto Rico blames the pumpkin for making their land an island. Supposedly, Puerto Rico was once a mountain in the middle of a huge plain. Some magic seeds planted on the mountain produced a lush forest on that mountaintop, and a vine sprang forth which bore a beautiful golden flower. This flower, in turn, produced a pumpkin. Two men found the pumpkin and began to argue over it; while struggling they drop the pumpkin. It rolls down the mountain and bursts open on a rock. The sea springs forth from inside the pumpkin, forever making Puerto Rico an island. There is a similar myth from India concerning the pumpkin being responsible for the oceans; in that myth, though, a man puts the body of his only son into a pumpkin after the boy dies. From this pumpkin sprang fish and whales and later a deluge which covered the earth.

A rather disgusting myth from Korea is about General Pumpkin. The only son of a rich man had a great appetite for pumpkins, and his parents spoiled him by giving him as many pumpkins as he could eat. He ate pumpkin cakes, pumpkin puddings, pumpkin soup, pumpkin porridge, and still he wanted more pumpkins. He became huge and fat. His parents went broke trying to feed him enough pumpkins. The pumpkins also had the unfortunate side effect of making the boy flatulent, and the villagers were tired of his stench, so they drove him from the village.

He wandered from village to village begging pumpkins, and would work in exchange for them, but he lost every job in a few days when his employers found what an extraordinarily filthy glutton he was.

One day he came to a big Buddhist temple in the mountains. This temple was quite wealthy, but there was a band of robbers who would frequently victimize the temple. The head priest at the temple asked the pumpkin eater to help guard the temple against the robbers. The boy asked for his usual payment: as much pumpkin as he could eat. While the priests were preparing this pumpkin feast, the robber chief came in disguise to the temple and asked if there was a party.

The priests told him that General Pumpkin was there. The robber chief thought perhaps that the General had brought many soldiers with him since the priests were making so much pumpkin, but the priests told him that the General was going to eat it all himself. This made the robber chief want to get a closer look at the General, so he decided to spend the night at the temple. Unfortunately, one of the priests recognized the robber chief, and told General Pumpkin. He told the priests to go and hide. The band of robbers gathered outside and tried to break in, but General Pumpkin let loose such a horrible stench and deafening sound that the robbers were startled. A gale came along and blew down the brick wall surrounding the temple, and all the robbers including their chief were crushed under the falling bricks.

The head priest thanked General Pumpkin and told him he could stay as long as he liked. He lived there for many years, and had all the pumpkins he wanted. The priests planted a large field with pumpkins so that they could feed him, and he grew old living at the temple.

One day the three sons of a rich man came to him to ask his help in defeating a white tiger which killed their father. They fed him pumpkin delicacies, hoping he would break wind just once. The three sons donned their armored and went outside to challenge the tiger to come out and fight. The tiny white tiger came out, and the three sons and it began to fight. General Pumpkin watched the fight through a small hole in the wall, and was so horrified by what he saw that he fainted. When he fell, he violently and loudly broke wind , and the tiger was paralyzed with fear from the sound and the smell that it was pierced by a bamboo stake. When the three sons came back inside they found the old man lying dead in the room surrounded with excrement.

Pumpkins are used to represent a man in a sacrificial ceremony for the malignant disease-bringing goddess Mari. Bosnian gypsies believe that pumpkins can turn into vampires.

Indians ate squash and pumpkin seeds as a worm expellant and whole squash as a cure for snakebite. We mostly eat pumpkin pie and toasted pumpkin seeds.

from: Gothic Gardening: Ye Olde Gothick Herbal