Red on the inside and delicious on all sides

This week I read a book about Darwin. It turns out that he was going for an entirely different career than the one he eventually ended up with.

And only an unexpected chain of events brought him aboard that Beagle ship as the sample collector for the scientists. But that's not what caught my attention in the story –it was that Darwin was an observant man.

Ever since he was a child he used to collect insects and especially beetles, and he was fascinated by them. Nowadays, how often do you see children outside observing things, finding them fascinating, and even worse, by a beetle? This fascination and observation, are essential to any discovery. One cannotclosely pay attention if he does not feel amazed by things. And I sometimes, without as much as mentioning it to people, feel fascinated by what sprouts and grows and bears fruit around me.

By the strength of the tedrils and the way they know how to make their way; by the scent of citrus flowers, and how it can predict the tastiness of the fruit.By the aroma that spreads in the room when chopping a salad. And today – I chose to by fascinate by the watermelon.

“A scrambling and trailing vine in the flowering plant family Cucurbitaceae” is the most boring and non-refined definition that can be found for this fruit.

A giant explosion of juiciness and freshness that a lot of people wait for in the summer just to take a full bowl of it and unwind on the beach, or at least, somewhere cool" would be more appropriate. The watermelon symbolizes the summer better than any other fruit.

Hot outside? Delicious inside. Although only in Japan the watermelon is conveniently shaped for storage in the refrigerator (yes, they are grown in a square container. On the other hand, the price of one watermelon will make you want to buy a regular, round one and cut it into a cube on your own), watermelon is the ultimate fruit for summer.

It contains a lot of water – 92% (which is almost like a jellyfish, but delicious), so anyone who wants something juicy and is tired of emptying water glasses – can definitely have some watermelon. For the same reason, also those who feel like eating but rather not burden their stomachs with heavy and difficult-to-digest foods – can choose watermelon.

The fruit, which originates from Africa (it even has an African appearance, with the stripes on the outside and bright red on the inside?), is a paradox – on the one hand it contains huge amounts of water, on the other hand, it stores it itself, in dryland farming – it does not require irrigation.

That is probably the reason why this is an African fruit (pome, to be exact) while an orange is not. Its season coincides with the summer weather, called in our places “I do not care why not Uganda, but how about Antarctica?” which is June to August.

During these months you should definitely eat as many watermelons as possible (after thumping on them in that symbolic ritual, finding the yellow stain that shows where the watermelon was attached to the ground and verifying it looks good) because after August the watermelons’texture becomes much less attractive.

Watermelon is good not only as a source of liquids (the amount of fat content is negligible) but also of proteins, iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium and many B vitaminsas well as vitamin A and vitamin C – a daily dose of 250 grams contains about a quarter of the recommended daily dose of vitamin C for an adult.

Its red color (there are those with yellow flesh, but I personally have yet to encounter) contain also lycopene – as in tomatoes, which is a very body-friendly antioxidant.

When we get tired of eating it – we simply turn it to popsicles.

Yours,