Watermelons: Nature's Gift to the World

Turns out most people love watermelons. Why? Because they're delicious. And they also have a pretty interesting history. Check it out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
and there's Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know,
featuring Jerry and Livia on watermelons. I don't know. I

(00:26):
think I just literally came out with this idea because
I was eating watermelon and I was like, you know what,
watermelons delicious? But I know there's a history there, and
I know there are square watermelons, and and like, uh,
I don't know if you're like me, but like like
nine eleven and like when Reagan was shot. I remember

(00:46):
where I was the day that I saw my first
square watermelon. Huh yeah. It was during house to work.
I think it might have even been you. I showed
you a square watermelon. I mean not in person, but
they're expensive. You're like, hey, come here and look at
this over my shoulder and I was like, la, la,
what's going I opened up my trench coat and there
was a square watermelon. But yeah, I think I just

(01:10):
the square watermelon has uh enchanted me for years now,
and I didn't even know that they were heart shaped
watermelons until two days ago. That's so cute? Are you bombed.
Now that you understand the how the watermelons get so square, well, no,
because I knew how they got square. But whoever told

(01:30):
me about this and how stuff works at our old
job told me it was because in Japan they have
small refrigerators and they make them to fit more easily
in a Japanese refrigerator. But I don't think that that
part is true, right, That I believe, based on what
I've read, is a myth that we're gonna crumble. Yeah,

(01:53):
should be going from square watermelons? Yeah? Sure? Why not? So?
Um they were invented in Japan and as pretty much
all perfect things were, And there was a guy named
um Tomoyuki on No and he was an artist. He
also happened to be a horticulturist and back in the
seventies he figured out how to make square watermelons and
created a patent on it. And they're so charming that

(02:17):
within a year they were all they were ready for sale.
They went from an art gallery like basically an art
project too for sale in Tokyo within you know, less
than one years. Uh. And they are grown in Japan
and they are grown in containers. Uh. And it's sort
of like a goldfish. They grow to fit their container,
including the round ones and the pyramid shaped ones, which

(02:38):
are really interesting looking, but they are not very good
to eat, and they cost about a hundred bucks in Japan.
And so I think that it is definitely a crumbled
myth that they are grown justifitted into Japanese refrigerators. Yeah,
because nobody eats them. You don't eat them, so myth crumbled.

(03:00):
And as a Japanese refrigerator small, that is probably true. Yes,
I mean most most appliances in Japan are smaller than
the ones you find in America. I think America leads
away in humongous appliances, right yeah, and humongous portions and
stuff like that. Us everything we need humongous appliant. So yeah,

(03:21):
I mean, if you haven't ever seen a square watermelon
or a heart shaped watermelon, especially at heart shaped watermelon
is cut open, because that's the real money shot. Oh,
I hadn't thought about that. It's it's really amazing looking
in a little bit of a brain twister, do you know,
I'm such a loser. I didn't bother to look up
what a heart shaped watermelon looks like, like what a
heart looks like, you know what waterlon looks like? Yeah,

(03:43):
let's put together. And then you said cut open. I'm like,
cut open, yes, you gotta see that. And the little
the pyramid when it looks more like a hurchies kiss,
like a giant arches kiss. Okay, I imagine like pretty
much a perfect rounded edged pyramid. But she's kiss. I could,
which is would be great for a fridge because part
of the problem with a watermelon in the fridge is

(04:06):
the shape. Those things roll around in there and they're
huge that it is a big problem. But as we'll see,
you shouldn't really be keeping in the fridge very much anyway. Um,
but let's talk watermelons where they came from, because they
It turns out watermelons are beloved around the world. I mean,
people love watermelons around the world. From what I read, Chuck,

(04:27):
there's only livestock have more agricultural land dedicated to raising
them than watermelons. They take up so much space, but
people love them so much that they just go ahead
and give the watermelons the space. And apparently by weight,
it's the third most eaten fruit in the world, really

(04:47):
the second because the tomato. Come on, I mean it's like,
but like, if you think fruit, I'm just gonna go
ahead and say the order is banana than watermelon. As
far as most eaten, I agree. I think calling a
tomato fruit is like saying cooded grass at a party.
You're saying a brownie's a cookie? Right? Yeah? What kind

(05:09):
of a jerk would say something stupid like that, especially
insist on it in in a pedantic army That wasn't
even you. You were just you were seeing stuff online, right,
you didn't invent that? Yeah, I was misled by internet rumors. Uh.
The watermelon, though, is a berry technically, which means it
has the outer part is hard, it's got a fleshy
metal and then the inner part is softer and has

(05:31):
the seeds. Uh. We'll get to the ced part later,
of course, because we don't really have seeds in our
watermelons anymore. And then, if you want to talk more specific,
it's called a peppo p e p o, which means
as a thick rind, like a squash or a pumpkin.
You're going with peppo. I'm I don't care what it's
called peepo for me, peepo peepo watermelons peepo, dude, I

(05:57):
love it. Yeah, peepo. Okay, and it's a berry too.
I mean, watermelons just got twice as good to me. Yeah.
I dare you to go to the uh grocery store
next time and say, hey, where do you keep the
people berries? The square ones? You've got these square people berries. Security. So,

(06:18):
watermelons are also related to squash and pumpkin, but they're
most closely related to cucumbers because they're part of the q.
Curbitacea family. Um, and other melons are too, but I
believe cucumbers and watermelons are pretty close together, um, even
though you wouldn't necessarily know it to look at them.
But specifically, watermelon species are Citrellis leonatus, and all of

(06:44):
the different kinds of watermelons that we have from what
I understand, our varieties of that species. That's right. Uh.
And we've known for a long time that watermelons came
from Africa. Thank you Africa for this gift to the world.
But it was more recently where they kind of zeero
it in on exactly where Uh. There are a lot

(07:05):
of melons in Africa that you could call a watermelon. Um,
they are different kinds of citrilis uh citrilus citrilush either
one okay species uh, but these are a little more pale.
They're not like that deep sweet red and which means
they're not going to be a sweet either let in taste.

(07:26):
So they're they're more bitter or more bland. Uh. And
they can be used over there. They still use these things.
They'll mash up the seeds and using them to thicken
a soup, or maybe they'll just eat the seeds, roast
them up and eat them, or maybe they'll use them
for water, just like clean water, because a watermelon is
mostly water. Yeah, I think um oh, I can't remember

(07:47):
the main character and the gods must be Crazy's name,
but he cuts open like uh something that I assume
is of a species of watermelon and drinks the water
out of it. Um. So yeah, there's a bunch of
different kinds of species of watermelons, but none of them
are like the ones that we um commercially grow and produce,

(08:08):
which are typically referred to as dessert watermelons to differentiate
that they're sweet and tasty and not like it. Yeah,
I ran across it, and that's I think. It's a
great little almost like cellar door dessert watermelon. Yeah, because
you usually do hand it out after a meal. Uh,
it's a It's a great American tradition. It's delicious. I

(08:30):
have wonderful memories being a kid eating watermelon with my
granddad and spitting those seeds out back when they used
to have seeds where I would put them in between
my fingers because they're slippery, and I would shoot them. Uh.
Just great memories of watermelon. And I still love it.
And my daughter just can eat ungodly amounts of watermelon.
Is that right? Oh? Yeah, she loves it. That's cute.

(08:52):
It's delicious, it's sweet, it's watery. Who didn't like it?
Apparently there's somebody who ranked watermelon and said it's gross
it it says that. Okay, The name of the fruit
literally tells you that eating it is going to be
the most boring experience of your life. It has the
same bland, mediocre taste of all the melons, except the

(09:13):
pleasantly chewy melon flashes are replaced by barely fruity flavored
wet sand What a fun, fun person to be around.
Please corner me at the next party I'm at. Yeah,
they probably say cooded grass. Give me all your opinions.
So you said that eating watermelon is a is a

(09:34):
great American tradition. Indeed, but Americans are relative newcomers compared
to other countries that have long standing traditions of enjoying
watermelon too, because like you said, they've kind of figured
out that somewhere in Northeast Africa, perhaps Egypt, perhaps the
area that's now sudan Um where the Nubians used to

(09:55):
run the show. They probably speaking on from recent genetic tests, um,
are the ones who domesticated the watermelon over many, many hundreds,
if not thousands of years of just selecting for sweeter
and sweeter seeds. And then it spread, starting probably with Egypt,
because Egypt treated with everybody in the Mediterranean, uh, pretty

(10:18):
much everywhere. Um. It reached across the Mediterranean by uh
maybe twenty four to twenty years ago. It hit India strangely,
um the ninth century CE, so not that long ago.
China by the tenth century. So it's it's weird that
it took that long, but it definitely spread. One of

(10:38):
the reasons why it did spread is because it's fairly
easy to grow, and it grows just about anywhere. It's
adapted from plants that can survive in semi arid conditions,
you know. Yeah, and this you know, we have the
Spanish to think for bringing it to the America's and
you know, they introduced them to the Native Americans and

(10:58):
they were like, hey, a this is this grows like
one of the three sisters are beloved squash. Uh and
so we think we could grow this stuff. And the
Native Americans grew it in abundance, traded it in abundance,
such that by the end of the seventeenth century there
was watermelon all over what we now call the United States.

(11:19):
And when the Europeans arrived, they were like they thought
it was native to hear because they were growing so
much of it. Yeah, I guess as late as the
nineteen eighties they were like still debating whether it was
of European origin or if if the North Americans had
it first, but they've definitively traced it back to Africa.
What still um under debate, Chuck, is whether it was

(11:40):
the Spanish that introduced it or oh yeah, or whether
it was some of the first um enslaved people from
West Africa that brought it over with them, UM that
I think is still up for debate. Oh interesting, Okay, yeah, yeah,
they'll get to the bottom of it someday. Uh. Livia
does point out though, that there are different words for

(12:00):
watermelon that are completely unrelated in Arabic and Hebrew and
Sanskrit and Greek and Spanish, and that's a good indication
that it is if the words aren't like one another,
that they have all had watermelon for a long long time, right,
So watermelons all over the world. It's been a long
standing part of UM, the United States history pretty since

(12:24):
before the United States was even a thing. UM. And
Thomas Jefferson apparently famously grew watermelons at Monticello and so
that there was nothing better than a Virginia watermelon, and
he was kind of onto something because apparently I don't
know if it was after Jefferson or not, but yeah,
it would have been after Jefferson. Because as the railroads

(12:45):
came along, UM, and it was getting easier and easier
to ship things like watermelons long distance. UM, they they
developed a kind of watermelon that wasn't quite as good
but traveled a lot better, and they would keep the
good stuff of themselves in the South, where the watermelon
naturally grows and flourishes best, and they would send these

(13:06):
other ones that didn't taste quite as good up north
because they figured they didn't know any different. That's right,
And um, you know, for there was a time in
America after the Civil War when former enslaved people actually
could support themselves and sustain themselves outside the plantations by
growing and selling watermelons and being farmers. But of course

(13:28):
that got ruined because uh, starting at about the Civil War,
white people turned it into a racist trope of black
people eating watermelons, and it has been in everything from
Birth of a Nation to uh to yard art kind
of supporting this racist trope over the years. Yeah, and
what really sucks about is that like it had its
intended effect and that there are Black Americans who report

(13:52):
still being uncomfortable eating watermelon around other white Americans, which
is it's just so maddening that that's still a thing,
and I mean it is and it's going to be
a thing until people just say like this is this
ridiculous And hopefully learning about the watermelon from us will
help some people say this is ridiculous and stupid, and

(14:15):
it's always been because one other thing about it, to
Chuck is that at the time, those same racist Southerners
and white people across the country who are associating watermelon,
enjoying watermelon with with black people, we're enjoying it themselves.
They liked it just as much. It was just because
they could grow and sell watermelons and it represented freedom,

(14:38):
black independence, and that threatened them that they used watermelons
as a trope and just very juvenile e started equating
it with all sorts of just dumb stuff. It's just
so suck the stuff, Chuck. All right, well, let's take
a break and uh, I'm gonna give you a little
shoulder rub through the computer. Thank you. Thanks to be fantastic.

(15:01):
It'll settle you down. And we're going to talk about
the great Charleston Gray right after this. Okay, I mentioned

(15:31):
Charleston Gray. If you're like, who's Charleston Gray? And why
do I care? It's a great hotel check in name. Yeah,
that is pretty good. That's the kind that they comp
up free breakfast to. You know what I'm saying that
that's that kind of name. Well, Mr Gray, doctor Gray,
do you ever put any weird prefix when you're checking
into stuff and signing up for stuff. Sometimes esquire, all right,

(15:52):
I'll do esquire doctor. Usually it's always fun. I don't know, reverend. Occasionally,
even though technically I am or reverend now, ID not
want to be cornered on that one, so never shied away.
But yeah, you can be like I've got the bona fides. Uh.
So Charleston Gray was uh is the name of not
a human being, but it's the name of a watermelon.

(16:15):
The humans name was Charleston and Charles Andres of the U.
S d A's Agricultural Research Service, the A R s
UH and the vegetable Breeding Laboratory there, and he created
the Charleston Gray watermelon in ninety four. And why do
you care? It's because of the watermelons grown all over

(16:36):
the world now have a lineage tied to the Charleston Gray. Yeah.
And so remember we said that like all of the
watermelons that you would ever come across or eat that
you buy at a store, that's all just one species
of watermelon. They're just different varieties of those are related
to the same variety. And that means that they came

(16:57):
upon one that tastes really good, ships really well. That
was a big one. It's also resistant to some diseases
and pests, but it also makes it extremely vulnerable. If
there's ever a pest or a disease that can attack
the Charleston Gray, it's going to wipe out all the
watermelons because they're all very genetically similar. That's right, and

(17:19):
that's why the a RS not the Atlanta Rhythm section.
We're gonna have us a Champagne ing, all right, here
we go. A RS is still looking into how to
make watermelons more hardy, and they're looking at why wild
watermelon species in Africa. They're looking at all kinds of
varieties around the world and looking how to breathe them

(17:41):
with less pesticides and that though, so the big watermelon
apocalypse never happens. So yeah, one thing they're doing with
the reason that they're really looking at is there's something called,
I think methyl bromide, which was like a fog pesticide
and maybe fungicide, killed a bunch of stuff that that
um Charleston Grays are vulnerable too. But it also burns

(18:04):
a hole in the ozone layer. So it got banned
in Europe ten years ago, and it was recently banned
here in the United States, and so they're really trying
to figure this out. So they look to Europe and said, hey, Europe,
what do you do when you couldn't use methyl bromide?
In Europe said, we started using different roots stock. So
they'll take the rudy part of the plant from squash plants.
Apparently you are really useful for this, and they graft

(18:27):
a um watermelon plant onto the top of it. The
top part of the watermelon plant stems and seeds and
all that, and it grows together to create the superplant
that has It produces great watermelons, but it's also resistant
to these diseases and pests, which goes back to the
Native Americans being great at growing watermelons because squash is
one of the three sisters exactly. It's really cool. I

(18:50):
love that stuff. Maybe we should do a short stuff
on the three sisters would be cool. You know they
factored heavily into pops Up a bunch in that of course. Yeah. Um,
so we mentioned seedlessness because if you have eaten a
watermelon in the past oh thirty something years, it's probably

(19:11):
doesn't have seeds like they did when you were a kid.
If you're an old timer like us, at least not
those big mature black seeds that were great for spitting
and uh and flicking. They have those little undeveloped white
seeds a little bit. But the seedless watermelon was another
invention by another Japanese geneticist. I think the other one

(19:32):
was an artist in horticulturalist, but this is geneticist Hitoshi Kihara,
and in ninety nine invented this seedless watermelon that started
being available in the nineteen fifties. And what's remarkable about
this is is that it's basically a manual operation that's

(19:53):
required to make seedless watermelons. Yeah, you use some something
called culture is seen, which takes a regular diploid watermelon
with two pairs of chromosomes two copies of the chromosome
um and turns it into a tetraploid, so that there's
four copies of each chromosome. And you take the diploid

(20:14):
and the tetraploid and you pollinate them, you cross fertilize them,
and what you produce is called a I think a
triploid and a triploid plant because it doesn't have an
even number of copies of chromosomes. It's sterile, so it
doesn't produce seeds. So that's how you get your seedless watermelon.
And it's a real b word to raise seedless watermelons

(20:35):
because part of your crop has to be diploid, regular
seeded watermelons to use to fertilize them. But um, and
at first, I guess farmers are kind of like, I'm
not doing all that. Who wants a seedless watermelon anyway?
And there was a guy named Oreste great name is like,
people are gonna love this, and this guy just worked

(20:58):
away at it, worked away at it, and kept for
affecting the seedless watermelon. Um. But it wasn't until the
late eighties that um, he finally managed to get it
to take off. He partnered with a company called sun
World International. Right, yeah, his first company was American Seedless
Watermelon Corp. And uh, it took partnering with the giant,

(21:19):
like a giant in the industry, a big agribusiness company
to to really have it take off. And it did. Um.
But you know, like I said, it's amazing. I think
a lot of people, uh, I think it's a commodification
and that is not true. It's actually a manual process that,
like you said, is a real pain in the butt
to farmers, and they had to get on board with

(21:40):
this because the way they have to grow them and
keep them separated, and uh, it's really a lot of work.
But they were Uh, I guess or he was right
on the money because people do love the seedless water.
I kind of missed the seeds, but I have to
admit the seedless or are easier to work with. Yeah,
I think nine center are seedless. And if you walk

(22:01):
into a grocery store today, Chuck, and you asked for
a watermelon with seeds, you're gonna be hard pressed to
find one because they're just seedless, are so prevalent, And
it's so crazy to me, Like, I I realized that
my niece Mila, who stars as j in the twentieth
century Fox movie No Exit, has was born into a
world where there's never really been a seeded watermelon. She's

(22:24):
never seen a seeded watermelon in her life. Yeah, Like
she wouldn't walk into a grocery store and say can
I have a square seated pepa berry? You know, and
they would say, hey, wait a minute, aren't you The
star of the Hulu hit motion picture Its stars such

(22:45):
a relative term, isn't it. Where did they shoot? That
was Atlanta, New Zealand. Oh geez, m man, So she's
really get to live the life, huh. They shot it
in New Zealand at the height of the pandemic, when
New Zealand had like zero cases. That's where you want
to be. Yeah, it was pretty neat, but they had
to like quarantine and everything for fourteen days on either side,
and it was really something. But yeah, they she know

(23:07):
she went. It was a real real shoot, all right.
So eating watermelons, you think, like it's such an American thing.
We surely lead the world in watermelon consumption, and we
eat a lot. We eat about fifteen pounds per person
per year here in America, to the tune of about
five billion pounds of watermelon a year. But Jack, that
ain't nothing compared to China. In Chinese residents ate more

(23:32):
than a hundred and fifty billion pounds of watermelon. Yeah,
that's fifty ms per capita. So we in the US
fifteen pounds per person a year. They eat a hundred
and ten pounds of watermelon per person per year. I
had no idea it was so big in China. Well, yeah,
I mean it's and again it's been there for over
a thousand years, so they've they've had a long time

(23:56):
to really come to appreciate the watermelon and Buddy do
day ever, Well, we grow about two thirds of our
own watermelon here in the US. The rest generally comes
from Mexico. You probably are eating Florida watermelon. Maybe Georgia
is number two, followed by Texas and California. But Florida

(24:17):
is great for growing those watermelons because of the weather,
because watermelons don't do well in the cold, so you
can kind of grow them year round in Florida. Yeah,
there's really nothing better than Florida weather this time of
year in particular. So um, one of the things about
the watermelons is that they're growing season takes a little while,
I think a hundred days, right, Yeah, so you're not

(24:39):
going to grow them up north, probably unless you start
them indoors. Yeah, I mean, you can't grow them anywhere.
Like one of the things they spread so far and
wide among Native Americans that the Hurons of the Great
Lakes and Canada were growing them. So you can't grow
them anywhere. It's just you can grow them all year
round in Florida, you can grow them for a very
limited window around the Great Lakes. But again, they'll grow
just about anywhere. But one of the things about them, too, Chuck,

(25:01):
is that they need a lot of space. Um. I
saw in a University of Florida UM website which I
apologize for using that, but I did. It's become so
much more normalized to me since moving to Florida, Like
dealing and seeing like University of Florida stuff doesn't trigger
me at all anymore. Yeah, not at all. Well, Georgia's

(25:22):
national champions in Florida, so who cares? So um. They
watermelon needs eighteen to twenty four square feet per plant
to grow. That's like a lot of space. Yeah, we
thought about growing watermelons here. It's um Again, like squash,
they tend to really take over. So just I mean,

(25:43):
grow your watermelon, but make sure you got the room
and you don't mind being annoyed by how much they spread. Yeah, um,
which really, I mean, are you gonna be annoyed by
some great watermelons growing in? Of course not. Um. They
also can rot, so you want to grow them on
something that's going to keep them from rotting because they
gotta they're gonna connect with the ground there. You can

(26:05):
grow them on a treillis. If your treillis is basically
a steel crane. That's kind of what it takes um
and I saw that that it's it's tough to figure
out when they're ripe. Some varieties will have the stripe darken,
you know, the contrasting greens. But I also saw in
a few different places, if you pick up a watermelon

(26:27):
there's a bald spot on the bottom where it rested
on the ground. If that bald spot is white or
pale green, it's not ripe. If it's cream or yellow e,
it's ripe. That's the best way to tell a watermelon
is ripe. My mom would always thump them in the store.
I've read that doesn't actually tell you anything, and that
it might actually tell you that they're overripe, because that

(26:50):
just sort of a thing that you do that you
see other people do. Have you ever smelled a cantaloupe. No,
that's an amazing smell, and that's a good way to
tell whether candle upe is right. It should be rather pungent,
but from the from the outside that rhyme yes. That's
how you tell that's that's a really good way to tell.
It's right. Give a give a candle up a good smell,

(27:10):
and you'll smell it right through that. My deal is,
I don't like other melons that much. I love watermelon,
but candle up has always been a little too bitter
for me. And uh, what's the green one? Une melon?
It's okay, I'm a watermelon guy, though I am not
a melon guy of any kind really, oh not even watermelon. Huh. No,

(27:33):
I've got no problems with any of it. I'm not
like you gross, but I also like don't really crave it,
and like you know that fruit salad that you'll get
with different kinds of melon and breakfast, and not like
I don't live for that or anything. What's your ideal fruit? Melange?
Describe it? Fruit milan? Just probably pretty pedestrian. It's fruit.

(28:00):
Would I maybe strawberries and blueberries together, just eating them
by the handful? Okay, so you don't do it like
a fruit mix? No, all right, what's yours? Well? I
mean that we will have big weekends at the lake
with lots of families and stuff, and that's always a
really good thing to put out for breakfast. If you
don't want to cook a big breakfast, put out at
a bunch of pastries and things like that and like, uh,

(28:22):
and then mixed together a big fruit melange. So I mean,
I'll throw everything in their strawberries, blueberries, cut up pineapple, grapes. Um.
You know, any kind of melon is always good to add.
Raspberries don't hold up that well. You know, they're pretty soft.
So I try to put in things. A chop up
a banana, put that in there. I think all that,

(28:43):
all that stuff is really good mixed together. I don't know,
mixing a banana in there could get mushy real quick. Yeah,
they can get a little mushy. And when a banana
becomes discolored by other fruit juices, it's not as appealing looking.
It's not as appealing. I generally thought that was funny.

(29:07):
I've got one for you, Chuck. Have you ever had
a wal door salad? Uh? Sure, mayo and grapes and
apples and walnuts maybe. Yeah, apple is good to put
in there, too, Okay. Yeah, I mean I'm fine with
all those and I would basically eat them all individually.
Be like cheap bastard can get us some real breakfast

(29:30):
and just be be mad for the rest of the morning.
Could you find me up some bacon or make some
biscuitoon scratch? Would you kill you to make some cinnamon? Rules?
I do that too, Um, all right, should we take
another break? All right, we'll take another break, and we'll
finish up with whether or not watermelons are even good
for you? After all? Right after this m okay, chuck,

(30:14):
chemistry and nutrition time? Are they good for you? Uh? Sure,
I don't think they're particularly bad for you. Um. Olivia
says that a cup of watermelons has forty six calories,
most of them coming from sugar. UM. A lot of water.
But unfortunately they also seem to have diuretic properties, which

(30:35):
means that it would cause you to expel more water
than you took in from it. Um. That does have
a little vitamin A, vitamin B, six, vitamin C, some
amino acids. I don't I don't think it's bad for you.
I don't know if it's a health food necessarily, although
unless you cook it and you unleash the power of lycopene. Right. Yes.

(30:56):
Lycopene is that pigment that makes tomatoes red. Uh. Sort
of related to beata carotene with the orange of the carrots.
But watermelon it actually has more like a peine than
tomatoes do. And some people say, hey, a lot of
antioxidants in there, so that's got to be good for you.
But like you said, you have to cook the watermelon,

(31:17):
which you can do. You can grill watermelon. Uh, it does,
It does very well on the grill. Actually you've done
that before. I've never done that. I mean, I like
at raw, but you can grill it up. So it
says that it causes the meat of the watermelon, um
to be chewy? Does that you haven't experienced super chewy?

(31:38):
But I may not have left it on as long
as you need to to reach that point because I don't.
I don't like chewy things generally. So um, what about watermelon?
Rhyme pickles? I've always been interested in eating this, and
I don't think I've been in too many places where
they were there. And I guess when I was I

(31:58):
was in in the mood for him. So have you
ever had pickled watermelon right now? Because you know I'm
not into pickled things generally. Oh that's right, that's right. Well,
I'm going to try umph for the both of us. Okay,
I did used to salt my watermelon a little bit
when I was a kid. Uh, don't do that anymore,
not for any real reason other than I just like
the taste is is. But some people put a little

(32:20):
little chipotli pepper, a little hot spice on there. Sometimes
you can juice them. Uh, you can make them in
alcoholic beverages, drop a little watermelon ball in there. Yeah,
you can also, um, so if you like. It's kind
of a kin to salting them, but it goes really
well with um, salty and non sweet tastes like um,

(32:46):
you mean, I had a watermelon salad years back at
a place called Harry's Pizza in Miami. They had chunks.
It's very simple, but it was just an explosion of flavor.
You had chunks of watermelon. Okay, Um, snipped up mint,
a little snipped up fresh tyme mint is good with watermelon. Yes,

(33:07):
it's amazing. Stretchy tella, which is like a very much
waterior mozzarella, like a looser mozzarella. Um, and then some
chopped up kind of just pecans, and all of this
in like minor amounts. You're not like making the Campbell's
chunky super version of this. It's all like just kind
of sparse because it doesn't take much a little bit
of olive oil. Maybe you throw a couple of grains

(33:30):
of salt on there, but you probably are getting enough
from the stretch tella to do um and it is.
Everything just works really really well together and it's really
easy to make. Like you can get all of those
ingredients at any grocery store anywhere and it's there. It's
an amazing little treat. I strongly recommend that. That sounds delicious. Yeah,

(33:52):
maybe you'd have trouble finding the stretch of tella. It
just used like a buffalo mozzarella, just some mozzarella that
comes in like a water of some sort to use that. Yeah,
and don't say mozzael no cooded gross the whole thing
with watermelon. And like you'll see it at you know,
a party sometimes someone will bore a hole in a

(34:12):
watermelon and turn up a full bottle of vodka and
stick it in there. Yeah, good idea. That's a thing.
I've never tried it, but there. Olivia points out, there's
a food writer for the Washington Post that said that's
a myth. There's so much liquid in there. Their vodka
has nowhere to go. Just pulls it like it does.

(34:33):
So where does the vodka go though, It goes somewhere, right,
it's not like a the ideas. It doesn't infuse all
of the watermelon. I think it will come dribbling out
after a while because the watermelon is it's ninety two
or ninety six percent water, right, Yeah, so yeah, some
of it will get sucked in before. It's not going

(34:54):
to do what you're what you wanted to do. I've
never tried it either, but but haven't either. So apparently
the same food writer says you should scoop the watermelon
out and then marinate it and and I guess being
exposed to air, it will dry out some and suck
in whatever alcoholic marinager you're marinating it in. Okay, well
that makes sense, but that also brings up the idea

(35:16):
of watermelon flavored things like watermelon jolly ranchers or chewing gum. Uh.
It's I think it's got a better track record than banana.
I've come to appreciate banana my older age. Yeah, but
it never tastes like banana. It tastes like whatever they do. Yes, yes, totally.
But watermelon kind of has that same wrap, which is like,

(35:39):
there's nothing that truly tastes like watermelon, no kind of candy. Uh.
And apparently there's a reason for that. Uh. It is
because that flavor is probably a product of an organic
compound uh called an aldehyde. Uh specifically, I don't even
know how you would read this z mma Z DASH
three six known a dienal aldehyde. Sure, okay, you enjoyed that,

(36:06):
didn't you. Yeah, but the flavor of that specific organic
compound is green cucumber melanie, fatty and rindy with a
hint of meat fat. But apparently that breaks down so
fast that they can't in the lab. They can't convert

(36:26):
that flavor into uh something they can replicate very easily
because they break down so quickly. Right, So I mean, yeah,
I just give him a break. Basically is the upshot
of all that they're trying. Now that I now that
you say that about banana flavor, I wonder how much
of banana flavor seeming like, oh it's banana flavor. The
candy is from the yellow that's always associated with it.

(36:50):
So like if you handed somebody just like a noncolored,
like just gray piece of candy. They had that same
banana flavor and didn't tell him what it was supposed
to be, Like, what chance would they have of actually
identifying it as banana? You should start a line of
great candy, right, it's called who cares? Josh is famous?

(37:11):
Great candy? Earth diesse? Who cares? No? I think I
think with you? Uh, In fact, I think there's enough
for a short stuff there. There's actually a lot of
information about banana flavoring. Okay, cool, let's do it. Maybe
we should, But apparently not one on a watermelon flavored
short stuff, No, I don't think so. So what else, Chuck?

(37:33):
You got anything else about watermelons? Not really? I mean
there are you know, watermelon festivals and stuff like that
all over the country. If here into that kind of thing,
it's it's sort of like any time a town has
a prized fruit or vegetable and it's in the sticks
in the United States, they're probably gonna have a parade
about it, that's right, Which is can be a lot
of fun. I'm sure why not. There's probably lots of watermelon,

(37:56):
and everybody loves watermelon, so it can't be all that bad,
right right? Um? Okay, Well, that's it for watermelon everybody.
If you want to more about watermelon, go check out
your local store and get started eating a watermelon. And
also shout out to a really um great episode of
gastro Pod. They covered the watermelons, social and natural history

(38:18):
and that's worth checking out too. Um. And since I
said that's worth checking out too, it means it's time
for listening mail. I've been waiting to read this for
an episode that was a little shorter because this is
a little baggy, but it's worth reading. And here we are,
uh with this email from Ian Bowers. Hey, guys, been

(38:41):
listening for the better part of a decade. Well it
might be the bane of some listeners existence. I love
the off the wall tangents you guys fall into. You
never know what's going to trigger a memory, remind you
of something that happened the other day, And at the
beginning of decided to keep a running tally at the
best tangents then on throughout the year. Did you this No?
I didn't. It's fantastic. Notice many of them tend to

(39:04):
be movie or music related, but here a few of
my favorites and what episode they were from. Are you
ready for this, I'm ready. This is great. So in
the episode Space Weather, What's that? We had a tangent
on John Mayer and the Grateful Dead apparently. Uh. In
the Hydro Power episode, we had a tangent on buttless chaps,
John Belushi and Steven Stills. Okay, is the free radical

(39:29):
theory of aging wrong? We had a tangent on justin
timber Lake's attempt to revive my Space remember that it
sounds like you. Uh. In Space junk Ahoy, we had
a tangent on lighting farts. Yeah, I remember that one too.
That that took me by surprise. Yeah. Uh. In the

(39:49):
Havana Syndrome, we had one on Will Ferrell as Glenn
Frey on s n L Glenn Fry plus two more
Eagle Stories, hair Loss, The Pits colon the Pits. We
had one on the smell of pizza hut, reminding Josh
of solid gold. Yeah, how corporate taxes work? Hubba Bubba

(40:10):
versus bubble yum versus bubbalicious. This is like a trip
down memory lane. It really about memory lanes on our
live show on Cocoa the Gorilla, I didn't know. Of course,
we have tangents there too, Huey Lewis is showing his
wiener in a movie. It sounds like me. I'm always
talking about Huey lunas Huey Lewis is weener. I don't

(40:33):
remember that one. Uh yeah he showed his his uh
his penis and shortcuts the Robert Altman movie. Oh that's right,
just taking a leak into a river. How reverse osmosis
will save the world. Uh. Cypress Hill still stands up
is the quote, and then another short Cypres Hill tangent
shows up during heat Waves. Talked about them twice on

(40:57):
short Stuff. Colon Chameleons, both of your favorite scenes, and beetlejuice. Yes,
there's a couple of more here. The creepy legacy to
Cecil Hotel, mysterious bag of crystal beans, the chuck in
the middle of the night, and then a crystal food discussion,
and then finally the wars somebody buying the silence of

(41:18):
the Lamb's house and turning it to an airbnb. Yeah
that's right, so Ian says, keep up the great work.
I think these things really let both of your personality shine,
and I think that's why most dedicated dedicated listeners continue
to tune in after all the episodes you've released. I'm
not going to keep track of tangents in two, but
I happily welcome them. Ian, Come on, buddy, keep it up.

(41:40):
We'll do this once a year. If you keep keep
up with them, we should release Sean from his obligations.
This is Ian's across to Bear. Ian could do it
or not stand Ian, no one else. Yeah, there you go.
I think that's fair. You know, if he wants too cool,
if he doesn't, we won't think any less of him.

(42:01):
That's right. What's his last name? Tangent Guy, Ian Tangent.
I are you sure it's okay? Ian Tangent Guy Bowers
Tangent Guys. Definitely his new nickname for sure. Um, well,
thanks a lot, Ian, that was very nice of you
to do that. And yeah, if you want to do
it again, we'll definitely read it next year. Uh. And

(42:21):
if you want to get in touch with us and
try to start an annual thing, take your best shot.
You can try it via email at stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,