winter melon

Winter Melon
Nearly mature winter melon
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Cucurbitales
Family:	Cucurbitaceae
Subfamily:	Cucurbitoideae
Tribe:	Benincaseae
Subtribe:	Benincasinae
Genus:	Benincasa Savi
Species:	B. hispida
Binomial name
Benincasa hispida Thunb.
Synonyms
Camolenga Post & Kuntze

The winter melon, also called white gourd, ash gourd, "fuzzy gourd", or "fuzzy melon", is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. It is the only member of the genus Benincasa. The fruit is fuzzy when young. The immature melon has thick white flesh that is sweet when eaten. By maturity, the fruit loses its hairs and develops a waxy coating, giving rise to the name wax gourd, and providing a long shelf life. The melon may grow as large as 80 cm in length. Although the fruit is referred to as a "melon," the fully grown crop is not sweet. Originally cultivated in Southeast Asia, the winter melon is now widely grown in East Asia and South Asia as well.

Winter melon is also a common name for members of the Inodorus cultivar group of the muskmelon (Cucumis melo L), more commonly known as casaba or honeydew melons.

Uses

The winter melon requires very warm weather to grow but can be stored for many months much like winter squash. It is commonly eaten throughout winter in countries of deciduous vegetation such as China, as one of the few vegetables available during winter, hence its Chinese name literally means 'winter melon'. The winter melon can typically be stored for 12 months.

In Chinese cuisine the melons are used in stir fry or usually combined with pork or pork/beef bones to make winter melon soup, often served in the scooped out melon, carved by scraping off the waxy coating. It is also chopped and candied^[1] as wintermelon candy (táng dōng guā) to be commonly eaten at New Year festivals, or as filling for Sweetheart cake (lǎopó bǐng). It has also been used as the base filling in Chinese and Taiwanese mooncakes for the Moon Festival.

In North India and Pakistan, the vegetable is also used to prepare a candy called Petha. In South Indian cuisine, it is used to make curries. In Ayurvedic remedies it used to increase appetite also its fresh juice is used to cure kidney stones. The seeds are cooked in milk and taken to increase "sperm count" and to improve sperm locomotion.

Occasionally, it is used to produce a fruit drink which has a very distinctive taste. It is usually sweetened with caramelized sugar, which enhances the taste. In Southeast Asia, the drink is widely marketed as winter melon tea.

The shoots, tendrils, and leaves of the plant may also be eaten as greens.

A small bowl of Chinese winter melon soup

A winter melon used as a serving bowl for winter melon soup

See also

• Double steaming for a Cantonese dish called Winter melon urn (冬瓜盅).
• Sweetheart cake, a famous sweet Chinese pastry made with winter melon.

References

External links

• PROTAbase on Benincasia hispida
• Multilingual taxonomic information from the University of Melbourne
• Benincasa hispida
• Benincasa hispida Click on Benincasa in the list on the lower left.

Gallery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benincasa hispida

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  Winter melon.

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  Seeds of winter melon, each seed is about ¾ cm long.

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  Winter Melon soup

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