Chapter 41 Degeneration and Variation of Watermelon

The history of people eating watermelons in the Central Plains is not too long. It seems that Zhang Qian did not bring back watermelon seeds when he traveled to the Western Regions, and planted them on the land of the Central Plains. There are more than 48,000 poems in the "Quan Tang Poems", many of which involve the word "melon", but they are not watermelons, but probably winter melons, pumpkins, and pumpkins.In the frontier poems of Gao Shi, Cen Shen, Wang Changling and others, there is no mention of watermelon.However, watermelons should have entered Chang'an through the "Silk Road" in the Tang Dynasty and Central Asia and West Asia. In terms of the climate of this section of the journey, watermelons will not deteriorate.Dunhuang is located in the ancient Guazhou, which is rich in melons, but it is not watermelon, it should be something similar to today's Bailan melon, Yellow River melon or "Wallace", "Elizabeth melon".According to the "New History of the Five Dynasties Siyi Appendix II", Hu Qiao first ate watermelon when he lived in Khitan, and it was after Khitan broke Huihe that he got this kind of watermelon. "It can be seen that watermelons have been widely planted and eaten in the Central Plains for only a thousand years, and may be shorter.

Watermelon has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxification. It has always been known as "natural white tiger soup". In fact, the greatest value of watermelon is that it is refreshing and sweet, quenching thirst and moistening throat.In the scorching summer, the heat is unbearable. When you cut open a chilled watermelon and bite into it, you will feel the heat disappear immediately, and the refreshing feeling will straighten your heart. The tribute melons eaten by the court in the Qing Dynasty mainly came from three places. One is from Yuci, Shanxi.It can be picked off in late summer and early autumn and sent to the capital.Second, the watermelons from Hami and other places in Xinjiang were delivered to the capital in the early winter.The third is Fujian melons, and the time to enter melons is in the twelfth lunar month.In this way, eating melons in the palace can last for three seasons.

Since watermelon was planted in the Central Plains, it can be said to bloom everywhere and bear fruit everywhere. There are characteristic melons that are regarded as excellent varieties all over the country. As far as the Beijing area is concerned, Daxing is the first to be promoted, followed by Shunyi.Due to the quality of the soil, the melons in these two places ripen quickly, are big and sweet, have thin skin and crisp flesh, and have a lot of water. The watermelon in Panggezhuang, in particular, has been famous for more than a hundred years.In the early years, there were two kinds of watermelons in Panggezhuang, "Hua Ling" and "Hei Beng Jin". "The feeling.Red flesh and black seeds, crisp and sandy. The color pattern of "Hua Ling" is slightly similar to today's "Jingxin No. 1", but it is slightly heavier than "Jingxin No. 1", and the lines are not as clear as "Jingxin No. 1". "Black bungee" is more distinctive. Its shape is oblong, the skin is dark green, with raised lines, which are the same color as the whole melon skin, like the veins visible on the body surface, so it is called "black bungee".This kind of "black spring tendon" has yellow flesh and red seeds, and the melon flesh is slightly older than "hualing", but the juice does not decrease because of this.Although the skin of the melon is slightly thicker, the fragrance of the melon is more mellow than that of "Hua Ling".

Beijing people pay attention to eating melons after a nap and dinner, or like to cut melons in the courtyard, share and eat.When I woke up from a nap in the afternoon, I chose a shady place in the yard, and fished out a watermelon from the cold water. At that time, there were no refrigerators, and in yards with wells, the watermelons were more soaked in the well water than iced.Waterless wells soak watermelons in cold water in buckets.Place it on the stone table in the courtyard and cut it open. Each person takes a tooth and bites down, and the juice drips down the hand.After eating two or three pieces of watermelon, the unsatisfactory drowsiness and fatigue disappeared without a trace.The shade of the old trees is completely different from that of the sun. Eat a few pieces of watermelon and listen to the singing of cicadas, which is the greatest enjoyment in summer.During the dog days, people mostly enjoy the cool in the courtyard.Whenever night falls, tables and chairs are placed in the courtyard, even people in the courtyard will bring out tall and short stools, sit together, fan, and drive away mosquitoes. talk.Or when the stars are bright and the moon is bright, occasionally there is a cool breeze, and people enjoying the coolness come to enjoy themselves and sing a few lines of Pihuang, single strings, and chaqus.When people are in a slump and slightly sleepy, someone will bring out two cool "black spring tendons", first cut a piece from the melon pedicle and wipe it with a knife, and then cut it open with a knife, yellow sand flesh, red seeds and thin skin .At this time, there will be people cheering and adding to the fun: "Good melon! Good melon!" The men are unrestrained, cut a piece with their teeth and hold it, and the women are gentle, cut a piece and eat it slowly with a spoon.Elderly people dare not eat too much for fear of stomach cold, so they just taste it.The children have to eat up their stomachs and pat their stomachs, comparing who eats more.Adults will urge them to eat some pickles, which are said to reduce swelling and stomach acid.

When I was a child, I liked watermelon the most, and among watermelons, I liked "black bungee" the most.Slightly longer, the ability to pick melons has been practiced, and its optimal accuracy rate can reach 90%.There are different picking methods for different varieties of melons, which vary according to the thickness of the skin and the moisture content of the flesh. "Black bungee tendon" cannot be determined by shooting, but by observing the size at the same time. The size, the weight of the weight, the depth of the color and the unevenness of the "rib" are judged comprehensively.Just like "look, smell, ask, and cut" in Chinese medicine, it is necessary to "integrate the four diagnostic methods".Later, the technology gradually matured and the accuracy rate became higher, but it became a hobby. Until now, even if you meet an acquaintance on the street and buy a melon, you have to weigh, pat, and listen to it to help "identify" one time.

In addition to the melons around Beijing, Beijingers in the old days also paid attention to eating watermelons from Dezhou, Shandong. Dezhou watermelons were already very famous in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.When Ding Baozhen was the governor of Shandong, in addition to entertaining guests with Dezhou melons, they would be transported to Beijing by cart every year and distributed to friends in Beijing and China.Fortunately, Dezhou and Beijing are just more than a day's dry road, which is more convenient.Dezhou melons are big, and some are two or three times the size of Beijing Daxing watermelons. They are called "pillow melons", which are oblong and shaped like pillows.The skin of this kind of melon is green, without patterns or irregular lines.There are red flesh and yellow flesh. Most of them are red seeds. They taste sweet and watery, and they are also good varieties.The top grade of Texas watermelon should be the "Sanbai" melon. I remember that in the mid-1950s, someone sent three Texas Sanbai melons to my family through the railway staff. Almost each of them weighed thirty-five or six kilograms. Shen broke on the way.The melon has a milky white skin, and when cut open, it has white flesh and white seeds, which are crisp and sandy. Although the skin is thick, the melon is fragrant and delicious.

I occasionally read Mr. Xu Jichuan's "Seventy Years of Experience Records", and there is an article that talks about Nanjing's "cemetery melons" in a large space.In the early 1950s, Mr. Xu accompanied Mr. Mei Lanfang to the north and ate "lingyuan melon" when passing through Nanjing. Mr. Xu praised the beauty of "lingyuan melon" and said that after eating melon, Mei Lanfang still couldn't get enough of it, so he ordered it again. Che went to buy a few and took them with me to Beijing to distribute to friends.This "cemetery melon" is produced near the cemetery of Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in Nanjing. Due to the relationship between water and soil, the quality is particularly good, but unfortunately the output is very small, and it is rarely seen in the Nanjing market.At that time, there was no Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. From Nanjing Xiaguan Station to Pukou, the trains had to cross the river in separate sections, so the trains had to stay in Xiaguan for a long time. In addition, there were many trains and there was waiting time for the ferry, so Mr. Xu and the others decided to There is plenty of time to buy "cemetery melons".Mr. Xu's detailed description left a deep impression on me. Once I went to Nanjing and asked many people who didn't know what "cemetery melon" was, which made me very surprised.Later, I finally learned from a 70-year-old man that there is indeed a "cemetery melon", which is small in size, has a mellow and mellow taste, and is extremely sweet. It has been extinct for decades.No wonder people under the age of fifty can't ask the truth!

People in Hubei often eat melons called "Hanyang melons".Among the three towns of Wuhan, the so-called "local melons" are mostly produced in Hanyang, and most of them are shipped from Henan.Wuhan has always been known as the "stove". Every summer and autumn, when the heat is unbearable, the demand for watermelons will naturally be more.This kind of Hanyang melon is both sandy and sweet, and its sandy flesh is sweeter.In the Qing Dynasty, "Hanyang melon" was also famous in the capital. Regardless of whether it was true or not, street melon vendors mostly used "Hanyang crispy sand flesh" to attract it.

Watermelons from Yuci and Taigu in Shanxi were once used as tributes to Jinjing. This kind of melon is small in size, but has a thin skin and crispy flesh. It is very distinctive and has been frequently seen in writings and notes.Yuci melons have not been paid much attention to, but Taigu melons have been eaten once in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and I have not seen how good they are.It may be due to the degeneration of the species. Most melons in Xinjiang are eaten after the Mid-Autumn Festival, or even later, so there is a saying "eat watermelon with the stove in your arms".Duke Zuo Wenxiang traveled to the western frontier, and he said that watermelons are cold in nature, and when eating melons, he would add a little wine to the juice to relieve the coldness. It is said that this is also the custom of the people of Hunan.Turpan produces the best watermelons in Xinjiang. It is said that whenever the melons are picked when they are ripe, they must be warned not to speak. If they hear the sound of people, the melons will burst and the juice will overflow.Although this is an exaggerated legend that is not credible, it also shows that Turpan watermelon is full and full when it is ripe.In the old days, transportation was inconvenient, and it was not easy to transport watermelons from Xinjiang. Today, it is no longer a difficult task.There are very few self-produced watermelons in Qinghai, and most of them are shipped from Xinjiang and Gansu, but they hit the market late. I once went to Xining in the middle of August in the Gregorian calendar, when the watermelons were just on the market.Xinjiang watermelon is very sweet, which is due to the arid climate and sandy soil, but the fragrance of the watermelon is not as mellow as that of the inland watermelon.Now most of the "Xinjiang Hongyou" that are common in Beijing are old and hard. Although they are sweet, they don't have any melon flavor.

Henan is a major melon-producing province, and the watermelons produced in the suburbs of Zhengzhou are very famous. In the summer of 1990, I went to Luoyang to visit Mr. Jiang Ruo, the former director of Luoyang Museum, because of the publication of "Selected Calligraphy of Mr. Zhang Boying".Mr. Jiang is a honest elder with a kind and warm personality.On the day I went to his house, it was extremely hot in Luoyang, with the temperature as high as 36 degrees Celsius.Mr. Jiang asked his family to bring a large watermelon, which is oblong and has a pattern similar to the "big flower ling" in Beijing.Mr. Jiang is more than seventy years old and cannot eat iced watermelon, but this watermelon was iced for me for a day.After the melon is cut open, the flesh has cracked and there is a gap in the middle, which shows that it is a little overripe.In the mouth, the melon flesh is very crisp and tender, it can be said to melt in the mouth, and it has a silky taste without being overcooked.What's more rare is that the melon has a clear and mellow fragrance, which is a good melon that I haven't eaten for many years.Mr. Jiang told me that this is Yanshi melon, which is the top grade among Henan watermelons. Although there are not many in the market, the price is double that of ordinary Henan melons.Good melons are rare, coupled with the heat and thirst, I actually ate a quarter of the watermelon that time.

Later, not far from the hotel where I lived, I found Yanshi melons for sale. The appearance was the same as that eaten at Mr. Jiang’s house. The price was indeed more expensive than ordinary watermelons.I bought two of them, weighing nearly forty catties, and carried them back to Beijing. They were really good. Beijing's "black bungee" has disappeared as early as the early 1960s, and the fragrant yellow watermelon is no longer seen."Dahualing" was first replaced by "Zaohua", and after the 1980s, "Jingxin No. 1" replaced "Zaohua".In recent years, "Jingxin No. 1" is also degrading, so new varieties have been developed.There are many varieties of watermelons in China, but in recent years, varieties from Japan and the United States have been introduced. These varieties have been produced by chemical fertilizers since they were born, so they are large and have high yields. Over the years, watermelons have grown bigger and sweeter, but they no longer have the original fragrance.