From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see .
and cantaloupe
vendors in , Russia
A melon is any of various plants of the family
with edible, fleshy .
The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Many different
have been produced, particularly of .
Although the melon is a
(specifically, a ), some varieties may be considered
rather than fruits. The word melon derives from
melopepo, which is the
μηλοπ?πων (mēlopepon), meaning "melon", itself a compound of μ?λον (mēlon), "apple" and π?πων (pepōn), amongst others "a kind of gourd or melon".
Watermelon and melon in India
Melons originated in Africa and , but they gradually began to appear in
toward the end of the . However recent discoveries of melon seeds dated between 1350 and 1120 BC in Nuragic sacred wells have shown that melons were first brought to Europe by the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia during the Bronze Age. Melons were among the earliest plants to be domesticated in both the
and . Early European settlers in the New World are recorded as growing
and casaba melons as early as the 1600s. A number of Native American tribes in New Mexico, including Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Navajo, Santo Domingo and San Felipe, maintain a tradition of growing their own characteristic melon cultivars, derived from melons originally introduced by the Spanish. Organizations like
have made an effort to collect and preserve these and other heritage seeds.
(B. hispida) is the only member of the genus Benincasa. The mature winter melon is a cooking vegetable that is widely used in
and . The immature melons are used as a culinary fruit (e.g., to make a distinctive fruit drink).
(C. lanatus) is a wild melon, similar in appearance to the watermelon. The flesh is inedible, but the seeds are a valuable food source in . Other species that have the same culinary role, and that are also called egusi include
(C. lanatus) originated in Africa, where evidence indicates that it has been cultivated for over 4,000 years. It is a popular summer fruit in all parts of the world.
Melons in genus
are culinary fruits, and include the majority of culinary melons. All but a handful of culinary melon varieties belong to the species Cucumis melo L.
(C. metuliferus), a traditional food plant in Africa with distinctive spikes. Now grown in , ,
C. melo cantalupensis, with skin that is rough and warty, not netted.
, with lightly ribbed, pale green skin, was domesticated in the 18th century, in , , by the 's gardener. Varieties include the French Charentais and the
hybrid Netted Gem, introduced in the 19th century. The
is a highly prized Japanese
resemble a large
with a darker green
and a finer netting.
C. melo inodorus, casabas, honeydew, and Asian melons
Slice of Cantaloupe melon
, a large, oblong, with orange wrinkled skin, orange flesh, strong aroma. A characteristic is its pointed ends. Growing in some areas of Greece, from which it was named.
, a large, bright-yellow melon with a pale green to white inner flesh.
Casaba, bright yellow, with a smooth, furrowed skin. Less flavorful than other melons, but keeps longer.
, originally from , , China. Flesh is sweet and crisp.
, with a sweet, juicy, green-colored flesh. Grown as
in , . There is a second variety which has yellow skin, white flesh and tastes like a moist pear.
, with smooth, yellow skin and dense, white flesh.
Japanese melons (including the ).
, a yellow melon with white lines running across the fruit and white inside. Can be crisp and slightly sweet or juicy when left to ripen longer.
Piel de Sapo (toad skin) or , with a blotchy green skin and white sweet-tasting flesh.
a smooth, white, round fruit.
Tiger melon, an orange, yellow and black striped melon from
with a soft pulp.
C. melo reticulatus, true muskmelons, with netted (reticulated) skin.
, distinct from the European cantaloupe, with the net-like skin pattern common to other C. melo reticulatus varieties.
(or Ogen), small and very juicy with either faint green or rosy pink flesh.
Sharlyn melons, with taste between honeydew and , netted skin, greenish-orange rind, and white flesh.
Modern crossbred varieties, e.g. Crenshaw (Casaba × Persian), Crane (Japanese × N.A. cantaloupe).
Commercial crop of bitter melon (Momordica Charmantia) is grown on .
The young fruit of
is eaten as a culinary vegetable in ,
and southern Africa.
(M. charantia) is the only significant melon that is a member of the genus Momordica. It is a culinary vegetable, widely used in ,
cuisines. The flesh of the bitter melon has a characteristic bitter flavor. In contrast, the red, gelatinous coating of the mature seeds is sweet and is used in some Asian cuisines as a sweetener. Bitter melon has an unusually large number of common names in various regions.
The ripe fruit of
is eaten in , , , ,
- Squash (plant)
Not to be confused with Cucumis melo inodorus varieties, also collectively called winter melon.
Charlton T. L Charles Short (1879). . . .
Henry George L Robert Scott (1925). .
(ninth ed.). Oxford University Press.
John Griffith V Catherine Geissler (2009).
(second ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 134.  .
. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.
Dhillon, Narinder P.S.; Monforte, Antonio J.; Pitrat, M Pandey, S Singh, Praveen K Reitsma, Kathleen R.; Garcia-Mas, J Sharma, A McCreight, James D. (2012). Jules Janick, ed. . Plant Breeding Review. John Wiley & Sons. 35: 88.  .
Denise Miller (September 24, 2008). . Albuquerque Journal.
Danielle Nierenberg. . Nourishing the Planet.
Enoch Gbenato Achigan-D Rose F Hermane Tonankpon A Raymond Sognon V Ousmane C Adam Ahanchede (2008).
(PDF). Biotechnol. Agron. Soc. Environ. 12 (4): 393–40.
Daniel Zohary & Maria Hopf (2000). Domestication of Plants in the Old World (3 ed.). . p. 193.
"Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai". Grassland Species Profiles. .
G.N. N M.N. van Luijk (2004). "Momordica". In G.J.H. G O.H. Denton. . Wageningen, Netherlands: . p. 248.  .
Anthony F. C Rayner W. Hesse (2006). . Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 255.  .
Heidemarie Vos (2010). . Strategic Book Publishing. p. 348.  .
. WiseGeek.
. Library&China ABC&Geography&Local Products. China Daily.
. The Moscow Times. September 21, 2007.
Jac G. Constant (1986). The Complete Book of Fruit: an illustrated guide to over 400 species and varieties of fruit from all over the world. Admiral. p. 35.  .
Judy Bastyra, Julia Canning (1990). A Gourmet's Guide to Fruit. HP Books. p. 64.  .
Linda Ziedrich (2010). . . p. 116.  .
James Ehler. . Food Reference.[]
Mabberley, D.J. (1987). . . p. 706.  .
Magness, J.R., G.M. Markle, C.C. Compton (1971). "Food and feed crops of the United States". IR Bulletin. New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. 1 (828).  .
Interregional Research Project IR-4
Wikimedia Commons has media related to .
. Purdue University, Center for New Crops & Plant Products.
. Multilingual multiscript plant name database.
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Da Sweet Blood of Jesus
February 13, 2015
"Da Sweet Blood of Jesus" is 's first crowdfunded feature and his second remake in a row, following "Oldboy" (a film I liked better than most critics), but as you might expect, given the defiantly idiosyncratic nature of this director, it's not content to be a rehash.
The movie follows the template of its source material, Bill Gunn's cult favorite "Ganja and Hess," pretty closely, and even evokes its sorrowful, romantic, dreamy tone as it portrays a love affair between two bloo but it's connected to the real world. It works through many of Lee's familiar preoccupations (including racism, cultural assimilation, class anxiety, capitalistic exploitation and addiction) in such a blunt way that it might fit nicely on a double bill with "" or "Summer of Sam." The latter were dismissed as jumbled messes by many, but had an undeniable feverish intensity, as if the writer-director were determined to work through every sociopolitical issue obsessin like many of his films, but even more so, they were kitchen-sink dramas, sermons, music videos and tragedies all at the same time, the individual aspects working at cross-purposes with each other, often thrillingly and sometimes to the films' detriment. But Lee's most persistent problem, an inability to unify his messages and make them cohere, doesn't really hurt him in "Da Sweet Blood of Jesus" because the film is a hypnotically nightmarish mood piece mor it makes sense and yet doesn't make sense, in the way that dreams do and don't make sense. Ideas bleed into other ideas and morph into third, tangen notions are tea almost unbearably savage violence is perpetrated on characters who often have done nothing to not once does Lee trouble himself with questions of likability, much less the possibility that he's following his own muse to the point where he's losing people. This will prove either maddening or refreshing, depending on whether your willingness to go where Lee takes you overwhelms your desire for something more conventionally neat and clearheaded. Stage actor
stars as Dr. Hess Greene, a noted anthropologist studying the ancient Ashanti Empire. In the opening scene, he comes into possession of an ancient dagger that triggers a complete change in his world, which is centered around a handsome Martha's Vineyard estate that measures exactly (ahem) 40 acres. The story, such as it is, kicks into gear when his depressed research assistant, Dr. Hightower (), attempts suicide, then grapples murderously with Hess in a close-quarters struggle involving the dagger. Without giving too much away, let's say that this struggle ends with Hess transformed into a nightcrawling loner with a thirst for human blood. The term "bloodsuckers" has all sorts of political and metaphorical meanings, and many a vampire movie has playfully toyed with them. "Ganja and Hess," a film that emerged less than a decade into the era of black power politics, was one of the more notable examples, and Lee, rewriting Gunn's original script, attempts something similar here. In the run-up to the movie's production, the filmmaker kept insisting that "Jesus" was not, strictly speaking, a vampire movie, and while that assertion seems a bit coy (vampires are pretty obviously what we're dealing with) it isn't inaccurate. Hess and many of the other African-American and afro-Caribbean characters are presented as living somewhere in between, or beyond, two familiar movie worlds, the Black inner city and the tony coastal enclaves of wealthy Whites. White "bloodsuckers" are glimpsed at Gatsby-like parties on Hess's estate, and talk of how the engines of capitalism grind up the powerless indicts America itself as a kind of vampire empire. But "Jesus" moves beyond that to show Hess as a literal and figurative bloodsucker himself, stealing precious bags of red from blood banks, preying on desperate and too-trusting people of color (including a young single mother) to satisfy his unquenchable thirst, and being enabled and in some cases egged on by his new lover Ganja (British actress Zaraah Abraham, camping up the exotic bitchery and exuding poise and menace) and his Renfield-like assistant Seneschal (). And, as in "Jungle Fever," "Summer of Sam," "" and so many other Spike Lee joints, there's a fascination with addiction, and how it overwhelms empathy and dignity. Without putting too fine a point on it, "Jesus" presents all sorts of traditions and institutions as engines of exploitation as well. The U.S. economy, the worship of guns and machismo, and the desire of minorities to get ahead by any means necessary are all seen as manifestations of addiction, or vampirism. It's all one enormous, multi-tentacled argument, and as you've gathered, Lee has tr but again, the horror genre is one of the only genres where it's OK, or at least acceptable, to be imprecise, because it's more often about sustaining a feeling or a mood than making a case.The most impressive thing about "Jesus" is its unfailing control of tone. This is manifested in Lee's immaculate and uncharacteristically clean, even sterile, widescreen compositions (shot by ); Barry Alexander Brown's scalpel- and the score, which switches between rap/R&B and Bruce Hornsby's introspective solo piano riffs, but always keeps the volume high. Even the more stilted conversations feel less like freestanding lines than lyrics in a two-hour visual and musical tapestry. This is clearly intentional: although Lee hasn't done a straight-up musical since "," his movies often tilt in that direction. This one dives into it headfirst—starting with the dazzling opening credits sequence, which sees dancer Charles "Li'L Buck" Riley gliding, twisting, spiraling and twirling across an array of Red Hook, Brooklyn locations—and keeps it going through a gospel performance late in the movie in which Black American Christianity gets pulled into the film's matrix of addiction and transcendence. It's impossible to say what, exactly, Lee had in mind when he undertook this project, but whether you like the result or not, you damn sure know you've seen something not quite like anything else (including its inspiration), made with a sense of passionate engagement.
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The husband-and-wife writing and singing team of Josh and Nicole Johnson make up the Nashville-based country-folk-rock duo Elenowen (named after Josh's mother and Nicole's father and pronounced "ellen-owen"). The couple met and fell in love in high school, marrying during Josh's freshman year at Nashville's Belmont University. Both pursued separate singing and music careers until 2009, when they joined forces after hearing Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand album. Realizing a vision that was somewhere between country, folk, and pop, the duo released a debut album, Pulling Back the Veil, a year later in 2010. Selected to appear as contestants on the television show The Voice, Josh and Nicole were mentored by country singer Blake Shelton and picked up hordes of fans from their appearances on the show, even though they were eventually cut -- by Shelton as judge, no less. Never really a country act in the strict sense, Elenowen honed their haunting folk-rock sound, and writing both individually and collectively, released the self-titled EP Elenowen on Dualtone Records in 2012. ~ Steve Leggett
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