Pumpkin originated in South America and has been cultivated for 9,000 years. Columbus brought it back to Europe, and was introduced to Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and other places by Portugal. It began to enter China in the Ming Dynasty. Li Shizhen said in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Pumpkins were planted in Nanfan, transferred to Fujian and Zhejiang, and now they are also found in Yanjing. Planting in February is suitable for Shawo land, and seedlings are born in April, which leads to numerous vines, and one vine can be extended by more than ten feet ... Its son is like winter melon seeds, and its meat is thick and yellow, so it can't be eaten raw, but it tastes like yam. It is better to cook with pork, and it can also be fried with honey. "
It is worth noting that in the Yuan Dynasty, Jia Ming also mentioned "pumpkin" in "Dietary Instructions". He said: "Pumpkin is sweet and warm, and eating too much can cause beriberi and jaundice. It's irritating to eat meat from the same sheep. Avoid eating with pork liver, red beans and buckwheat noodles. " But Columbus had not yet arrived in discovery of america, and China had not found any other wild species of pumpkin, so the "pumpkin" in the book is by no means what we call pumpkin today, but other melon plants. It's just that today's pumpkins are not suitable for eating with mutton, so they are misinformed, and even the wrong statements such as "Pumpkins have been introduced to China for a long time" and "Asia is also the origin of pumpkins" are derived.
The advantages of pumpkin are very obvious. It has large yield, easy survival and rich nutrition, and can replace grain in famine years, so it is also called "rice melon" and "rice melon". "The record of holding an urn in Beishu" said: "The older the pumpkin, the better. It is advisable to cook Huangzhou pork with Zizhan, with less water and slow down the fire. The steaming is extremely cooked, sweet and greasy, and extremely fragrant." The so-called "Zi Zhan's method of cooking pork in Huangzhou" is Su Dongpo's method of making Dongpo meat, which shows that people have regarded pumpkins as treasures.
According to ancient books, people not only ate fruits, but also ate leaves. For example, "It's wonderful to use leaves to remove tendons", and flowers can also be eaten. "Soak them in boiling water to salt them, and take the place of dried vegetables", but eating flowers requires removing their hearts and whiskers, otherwise it will be too bitter, while pumpkin stems can be "woven and spun into silk". In addition, pumpkin is also used to soak wine, which is considered to be beneficial to health care. "Seeking the Original Materia Medica" contains: "It is better to steam and soak wine. Its vines are bitter and slightly cold. Calm the liver and stomach, pass the meridians, and benefit the blood. "
Interestingly, before Guangxu, there were few sayings of pumpkin, and most of them were called pumpkin, pumpkin, house melon and wogua. On the one hand, it was from overseas, on the other hand, it was huge, and there was also a saying of "golden melon" because of its golden color and medicinal value. When opium is rampant, pumpkins are often used as medicine to treat smoking addiction.
There were many paths for pumpkin to be introduced into China, but Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang were the earliest. At the beginning, Chinese people mistakenly thought that pumpkin came from Japan, so it was called "Japanese melon", and because Japan is in the east of China, it was also called "East melon". In addition, there was a further misunderstanding that pumpkin came from the Korean Peninsula and was called "Korean melon", while Japanese people thought that pumpkin came from China, so they called it "Tang eggplant" (at that time, Japanese called China products as Tang objects).
In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, southern pumpkins were transplanted northward along the Grand Canal, especially in Shandong, which became an important pumpkin planting town in the north. People began to realize that this pumpkin should come from the south, and the name "pumpkin" became popular.