flexuosus group, long and twisted like a snake,
which includes the “Armenian cucumber.”
There is also the dudaim group of small,
especially musky melons used in the U.S.
South and elsewhere for preserves and simply
to scent the air (pocket melon, pomegranate
melon, smell melon); dudaim is Hebrew for
“love-plants.” The horned melon, also called
jelly melon and kiwano, is the fruit of
Cucumis metuliferus, a native of Africa with a
spiky yellow skin and a relatively scant
amount of emerald-green, translucent gel
surrounding its seeds. The gel has a sweet
cucumbery flavor and is used in drinks, fresh
sauces, and sorbets. The hollowed-out skin
makes a decorative container.
Watermelon The watermelon is a distant
relative of the other melons, the fruit of an
African vine, Citrullus lanatus, whose wild
relatives are very bitter. The Egyptians were
eating it 5,000 years ago, and the Greeks knew