The Most Dangerous Fruit in America

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Arts, Science, History, Food

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's the epitome of summertime: there’s nothing like a cold, juicy slice of red watermelon on a swelteringly hot day. But, once upon a time, watermelons were neither red nor sweet—the wild watermelon has white flesh and a bitter taste. This episode, we scour Egyptian tombs, decaying DNA, and ancient literature in search of watermelon's origins. The quest for tasty watermelon continues into modern times, with the rediscovery of a lost (and legendarily sweet) varietal in South Carolina—and the Nigerian musical secret that might help you pick a ripe one. But the fruit's history has often been the opposite of sweet: watermelons have featured in some of the most ubiquitous anti-Black imagery in U.S. history. So how did the watermelon become the most dangerous—and racist—fruit in America? (encore) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Summer in New England is my very favorite fruit season.
0:04.1	Right about now, I'm eating peaches and cherries and blueberries, and of course, lots and lots of watermelons.
0:11.1	Which made us think that it was time to revisit one of our favorite episodes, all about the watermelon.
0:17.3	Make sure to listen all the way through for how to choose the best, most delicious specimen
0:22.6	from your local farm stand. Enjoy. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm happy to get together and sing, especially if it's singing about watermelons.
0:46.5	Yeah, but I'm sorry, Cynthia. Are you 103?
0:50.1	Perry Como? What about some Harry Styles?
0:52.7	Watermelon sugar, I. Watermelon sugar high. Watermelon sugar high. Watermelon sugar. It's about the
1:02.5	watermelon. Follicking on the beach with a watermelon. It's all good. So hey listeners, guess what this
1:07.6	episode is about? No, not Harry Stiles. Or Perry Como.
1:11.3	It's about the fruit that's bigger than both of them put together.
1:14.7	The watermelon.
1:16.0	It's kind of a big deal.
1:17.2	A very big deal.
1:18.5	Very big deal in growing.
1:20.6	So the FAO Statistics Yearbook,
1:24.5	the Food and Agriculture Organization yearbook,
1:27.4	says that the world produces something
1:29.7	like 100 million tons.
1:32.0	Interestingly, of all the vegetable crops, watermelons are grown on the largest land area
1:38.9	in the world.
1:40.2	They take up the most space of any crop in the world, of any vegetable crop. And yeah,
	...

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