In my hometown, the villagers have always called pumpkins north melons. So growing up in the country, I only have the concept of pumpkin, not pumpkin. Later, I went to work and traveled all over the world, only to know that there are pumpkins in the world, and this pumpkin is what the hometown folks call the north melon.
why
Just no melon.
In my spare time, I often wonder why our country has watermelon, pumpkin and winter melon, but there is no north melon. After looking up a lot of information, I got two kinds of legends-one is from The Journey to the West, one of Four Great Classical Novels. In the eleventh time in the book, Xiao Yu, the lonely soul of the Tang Dynasty, is empty, saying that Emperor Taizong recruited strange people to offer melons and fruits to the underworld, and a man named Liu Quan was willing to risk his life to find the death of his beloved wife. Liu Quan committed suicide by knocking melons and fruits on his head, and his ghost went to see the keeper with a gift. The terrible man was so moved that he sent his husband and wife back to the sun. The melon and fruit presented by Liu Quan's ghost is the north melon. Since the North Melon was given to the Devil, China has no North Melon since then. The Journey to the West author Wu Cheng'en made a mistake and wrote a pumpkin for the Ghost King. Another legend is that in the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizong and the Dragon King of the East China Sea were sworn brothers and vowed to die on the same day of the same year. But an accident, Emperor Taizong helped Wei Zhi, the minister, to kill the Dragon King of the East China Sea, who sued the underworld and demanded that Emperor Taizong fulfill his death oath on the same day of the same year. After learning about this, Emperor Taizong sent someone to the underworld to plead with Beigua in order to avoid the fate of mutual destruction. Emperor Taizong finally saved his life, but since then, Beigua has disappeared from the world.
Beigua is actually a pumpkin.
Legends are just legends after all. What is a melon? Cihai's explanation is: north melon generally refers to pumpkin, and a few areas refer to bamboo shoots and melons. At present, the most common and recognized saying is that north melon is pumpkin. It belongs to Cucurbitaceae, Cucurbitaceae. Due to different places of origin, the names are different. Also known as melon, pumpkin, loofah and melon, Taiwan Province Province is called melon, which is native to Central and South America. Pumpkins are grown all over China, and Hokkaido is the main crop in Japan. In the west, pumpkins are often used to make pumpkin pies, that is, pumpkin biscuits.
Data show that pumpkin is rich in carotene and vitamin C, which can strengthen the spleen, prevent gastritis, prevent night blindness, protect the liver, make the skin tender and neutralize carcinogens. Yellow fruits and vegetables are also rich in vitamins A and D-vitamin A can protect gastrointestinal mucosa and prevent gastritis, gastric ulcer and other diseases; Vitamin D can promote the absorption of two mineral elements, calcium and phosphorus, thus strengthening muscles and bones. Pumpkin is an important food for people. The most common eating methods are boiled pumpkin porridge, steamed pumpkin pie, fried pumpkin and stewed pork ribs with pumpkin. In our family, my father, who is over eighty years old, likes pumpkin buns best, my wife has a soft spot for pumpkin porridge, and I like fried pumpkin best.