"A piece of cold water cuts the bottom of the pool and the moon, and the six bays obliquely roll the clouds", which is a beautiful sentence of the ancients. In the hot summer, watermelon has become a seasonal delicacy for people to quench their thirst. Watermelon is native to the desert area in southern Africa, and its image is found in ancient Egyptian works of art, which shows that watermelon has been planted for 4 years. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, watermelon was introduced into the Central Plains from the Middle East through the Western Regions. Because it came from the West, it was called "watermelon". .
Watermelon is the main fruit in summer, so it is also called "summer melon". Watermelon juice is rich in water, also called "water melon"; Watermelon is cold and can clear away heat and relieve summer heat, so it is also called "cold melon".
In the hot summer, the summer heat is pressing. Eating two pieces of watermelon with sweet juice will make you feel refreshed and extremely cool. As Fang Kui, a poet in Yuan Dynasty, said in "Eating Watermelon": "Plumes of flower shirts are stained with saliva, and traces of blood are red; The fragrance is floating and laughing, and the teeth are watery, and it is cool into the clothes and bones. " Working people in ancient China have known that cooled watermelons can clear away summer heat and quench thirst. The indigenous method is to put the whole watermelon in a bamboo basket, dive into a well, soak it for half a day and then take it out. In the poem "Ode to Watermelon" in Jin Dynasty, Wang Yuke described the scene of watermelon in Jingzhen: "A cold pool cuts the bottom of the moon, and the six bays obliquely roll the clouds." In Taiwan Province, a treasure island, the climate is warm, and watermelons can be eaten in all seasons, and winter is no exception. As described in the ancient poem: "The green jade in the spring dish recommends watermelon, but the willow shoots first." "There is no Yukikaze in the three winters, and it is always warm. I will offer a green jade melon in the New Year." "The plants and trees are competing for buds in the middle of winter, and the red and yellow flowers bloom all over the four seasons. Why do you need to soak the soup more? In the first month, Shenjing has entered the melon." As for ethnic minority areas such as Xinjiang, where people wear fur jackets and gauze in the morning and eat watermelons around the stove, the watermelons eaten in winter are preserved by cellar storage, not in winter.
Watermelon has won people's favor, which is inseparable from its rich nutrition. In addition to containing a lot of water, watermelon pulp almost contains all kinds of nutrients necessary for human body. Glucose, fructose, sucrose; Vitamins a, b, c, pp, carotene; Protein and various amino acids; Fruit acids and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and iron are all available.
In the Ming Dynasty, Wang Ying said in Food Materia Medica: "Watermelon is cold and antipyretic, and it has the name of" Natural White Tiger Decoction ". "White Tiger Decoction" is composed of gypsum, Anemarrhena asphodeloides, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch and japonica rice. It is a famous prescription for treating excessive heat of qi created by medical sage Zhang Zhongjing. Comparing watermelon with natural white tiger decoction describes the magical effect of watermelon in clearing away heat and relieving summer heat. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that watermelon has the effects of relieving summer heat, relieving annoyance, quenching thirst, promoting fluid production, clearing away heat and promoting diuresis, and is a good medicine for treating summer onset, heatstroke, hypertension, nephritis, urinary tract infection, aphtha and drunkenness.
Daily Materia Medica says: Watermelon "clears away summer heat and relieves thirst." Watermelon juice is extremely rich, with water content as high as 96.6%, ranking first among all melons and fruits. In the hot summer, eating a few watermelons, the faint fragrance and the sweet juice suddenly bring people a cool feeling. It is really the top grade to relieve summer heat and quench thirst, and it is worthy of being the "king of melons and fruits" in summer.
Watermelon is not only rich in water, but also rich in nutrition. It contains protein, sugar, calcium, phosphorus, iron and various vitamins. It also contains essential amino acids. When it is hot in summer, you sweat a lot, so you eat less. Eating watermelon can not only replenish water, quench your thirst in summer, but also supply nutrition, maintain your physiological function and help prevent you from getting sick in summer. As the saying goes, "How many melons are there in summer?"
As a raw fruit, watermelon can be cooked into delicious food. The best part of watermelon cooking is the skin, which is also called Cuipi or Tsing Yi. After peeling off the old skin on the surface, it can be cut into shreds, slices and blocks. Cooking methods such as burning, boiling, frying, stewing and mixing can be used to make dishes such as Cuipi loin, sweet and sour melon skin, stir-fried shredded Tsing Yi and cold watermelon, which are all fresh and refreshing. Watermelon pulp can also be used in dishes, and it is delicious to cut into pieces to stew or hang and fry.
once the watermelon is cooked skillfully, it can become a banquet dish. There is "watermelon cup" in the imperial diet of Qing Palace. The method is to dig out the pulp of watermelon, add diced chicken, diced ham, walnut kernel and pine nuts, cover it and stew it with slow fire. The "double Feng Haichao" in Shandong Confucian cuisine is to put two chicks into watermelon with seasoning, and then steam them in retort. The famous dish "Watermelon Duck" in the south of the Yangtze River is made by selecting good fat and tender ducks, putting them in watermelons and cooking them. Guangdong's "fruit watermelon cup" and Yunnan's "assorted watermelon cup" are all fine products in summer beet, and their flavors are different, which are talked about by diners.
Watermelon is a good fruit in summer and a good medicine for treating diseases. Watermelon pulp, peel and melon seeds can all be used as medicine. Watermelon skin also has a very vivid drug name-watermelon Cuiyi. In the medical books of past dynasties, there are records that watermelon is used as medicine, and it has many functions, such as relieving summer heat, quenching polydipsia, promoting urination, treating bloody dysentery, treating throat obstruction, relieving alcoholism and so on. Modern research also proves that watermelon has many medicinal uses.
1. According to China medical science, watermelon is sweet in taste and outdated in sex. It has the effects of clearing away heat and relieving summer heat, relieving anxiety and thirst, and promoting urination. It can be used to treat summer heat, polydipsia, excessive heat, adverse urination, laryngitis and aphtha.
2. According to the Diet Spectrum of Living with Interest, watermelons: "Sweet cold, clearing lung and stomach, relieving summer heat, relieving vexation and quenching thirst, sobering up and cooling camp, treating throat obstruction, aphtha, fire poison and seasonal symptoms." Herbal Medicine in Southern Yunnan says that watermelon can "cure all heat, phlegm and qi stagnation." This wax meets the original, but it says: "The heat of pericardium can be drained from the small intestine and bladder, which can relieve the thirst of the sun and Yangming and the thirst of fever, so it is called" Natural White Tiger Decoction ""
3. The sugar, salt and nicotinic acid contained in watermelon can improve the symptoms of nephritis and hypertension patients. These patients eat more watermelons in summer, which is very beneficial.
4. Watermelon can sober up, so it is very effective to let drunken patients take watermelon juice frequently.
5. Stopping brown sugar with watermelon juice can treat bloody dysentery.
6. Watermelon has diuretic and cardiotonic effects. After eating watermelon, the water in watermelon is filtered by the kidney, and the excess part is turned into urine and excreted. Therefore, eating watermelon in summer can prevent excessive water loss, prevent collapse and cool off the heat.
7. Patients with chronic nephritis and ascites due to cirrhosis at home can choose watermelon black cream. The preparation method is as follows: take one watermelon, cut the pedicle, pour out the pulp, fill it with garlic petals, cover the pedicle with mud, simmer in the fire for one day, take out the charred melon skin and grind it into fine powder, which is the watermelon black cream. The service method of watermelon black cream is 3-5g each time, with warm boiled water, twice a day.
8. People with mouth sores can also take watermelon black cream, which is 3-5g each time, twice a day, and can be used externally at the same time.
To treat acute or chronic nephritis, concentrated watermelon juice can be made from pulp and peel, or 3g dried watermelon peel and 6g fresh lalang grass rhizome can be decocted in water, all of which can achieve diuretic and detumescence effects. To treat acute urethritis, palpitation and pyelonephritis, it is also advisable to eat watermelon raw and take 3 ~ 6 grams of watermelon peel daily, which can alleviate symptoms such as frequent urination, urgency and pain. For patients with hypertension, eating watermelon is also beneficial, such as using watermelon seeds to reduce blood pressure. Take 9 ~ 15g of watermelon kernel and take it orally in decoction, or eat it raw or stir-fry it and chew it, all of which have certain antihypertensive effect.
watermelon frost sold in Chinese medicine shops is a white crystal produced by mixing watermelon peel and Chinese medicine mirabilite. Blowing it on the affected part can clear away heat and reduce swelling. It is suitable for acute pharyngitis and acute tonsillitis, and also has a certain curative effect on sores on the mouth and tongue. Folk also chopped watermelon skin, dried in the shade and ground into fine powder, and then mixed with salt water and wine, 9 grams each time, for the treatment of sprained low back pain. In addition, the shell and kernel of watermelon seeds have certain effects of expelling roundworms and tapeworms.
Watermelon can also prevent itching. Itch is the inflammation around sweat glands caused by sweat staying in sweat gland tubes and squeezing into surrounding tissues, which can produce small vesicular red papules, which has a certain impact on summer life. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that itching is caused by high temperature in summer, poor sweating and summer dampness accumulated in the skin. Because watermelon has a good effect of clearing away summer heat similar to Baihu decoction, it can effectively prevent and treat malnutrition.
Applying watermelon skin to the face can increase the nutrition of the skin from the outside, promote the metabolism of the facial skin, help the skin to be moist and tender, and prevent facial pigmentation caused by too much sunshine in summer. The method is to wash the face with warm water, gently rub the leftover watermelon peel on the face in turn along the muscle direction, and wash the watermelon peel juice with warm water after 15 minutes, once or twice a day.
Watermelon seeds can be processed into spiced melon seeds, creamy melon seeds, multi-flavor melon seeds, etc., which are not only delicious, but also beneficial to lung, intestine moistening, hemostasis, stomach strengthening, blood pressure lowering and other medical effects. If 5 grams of watermelon seeds are taken, mashed with shells, decocted in water to remove residues, and added with rock sugar for oral administration, it can cure pulmonary tuberculosis hemoptysis and bloody stool. Mashing watermelon shell, decocting with water to remove residue and adding brown sugar to take it has obvious curative effect on hematemesis, hemoptysis and blood under intestinal wind.
In addition to eating the pulp of watermelon, the juice and peel of watermelon can also be used to make healthy diet and dishes. Examples are as follows.
① watermelon tomato juice: remove the seeds from the ripe watermelon pulp and squeeze the juice with clean gauze; Peel the red ripe tomatoes, remove the seeds and squeeze the juice with gauze. Drink the two juices after mixing, make them on the same day, and finish them on the same day, about 1 ml per day.
② cold watermelon rind: firstly, peel off the red pulp and the thinnest layer of hard rind from the leftover watermelon rind, clean it, cut it into thin strips, add a little salt to marinate for a while, squeeze out the excess salt water, and add a proper amount of garlic paste, soy sauce, white sugar, monosodium glutamate and ground sesame oil. You can also put the pickled watermelon skin (strips) in an oil pan with seasoning and fry it to make fried watermelon skin.
③ melon peel and lotus leaf tea: 25g of fresh watermelon peel or 1g of dried watermelon peel and 3g of fresh lotus leaf are decocted in water instead of tea, and finished on the same day.
Cure tracheitis
Eating watermelon in summer can cure tracheitis and asthma. The specific methods are as follows:
In summer, buy a watermelon weighing about 2, grams, cut a cover, remove the middle, leave the pulp about 3 cm thick, put 15 grams of honey, 15 grams of sesame oil, 1 grams of sliced fresh ginger and 1 red dates in the melon. Then cover the melon, put it in a pot and fix it. Add water to the pot to 1/3 of the melon, and stew for one and a half hours. Eat the dew in the melon while it is hot, and eat ginger slices slightly, but not jujube meat. It is best to sleep for half an hour after eating. It is best to eat it all at once; If you eat it twice, the second one still needs to be stewed. This recipe is usually only used once a year, and it will be effective in winter that year; Eat it in the dog days the following year, in order to consolidate. Children's consumption can be reduced as appropriate.