Where did people first eat melon seeds? What is the history of melon seeds?

The history of China people eating melon seeds began in the Ming Dynasty.

Melon seeds, regardless of emperors and princes, gifted scholars and beautiful women, and ordinary people like to eat them. The Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang "likes to roast fresh watermelon seeds with salt". Quan Yanchi, a contemporary writer, stated in The Leading Secretary at the Dining Table that "Mao Zedong likes to eat black melon seeds (watermelon seeds) and Liu Shaoqi likes to eat sunflower seeds".

In the eighth episode of A Dream of Red Mansions, I wrote: "Daiyu Baoyu is a guest in pear fragrance court, Daiyu is eating melon seeds, and she just grins." The book "The Last Eunuch of China" also records that Queen Yulong (the wife of Guangxu) who issued an imperial edict announcing the abdication of Puyi, the Qing emperor, had a hobby-eating melon seeds. Eat melon seeds before entering the bedroom every day, and you can't sleep without eating. Because of eating too many melon seeds, the queen mother Yulong had something wrong with her stomach, and her appetite was greatly reduced.

When did the custom of eating melon seeds begin? In the article Watermelon in Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, it is said: "Melon seeds are cracked to get kernels, and raw and fried are good." The custom of eating watermelon seeds seems to have been described in the Ming Dynasty.

In Zhao Wen's Poems of Purple Xuanzang during the reign of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, there was a poem about selling melon seeds in Midnight: "Let's go home and sell melon seeds all night along the street." During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Pan Rongbi's book "Ji Sheng at the Age of Emperor Jingdi" recorded the grand occasion of selling melon seeds on the streets of Beijing on New Year's Eve: "New Year's Eve-the sound of selling melon seeds is comparable to firecrackers, which sounds good."

The book "The Private Life of Emperor China" describes that Emperor Qianlong likes to watch plays, and he performs in Yuanmingyuan every year. On the occasion of the New Year, he also has a shopping street in the park. According to the form of market shops, there are antique shops, clothing shops, wine shops, tea shops and so on. There are even people who sell melon seeds with small baskets.

Melon seeds, as the name implies, are the seeds of melons, such as watermelon seeds and pumpkin seeds. Each kind can become a life, so there are at least twenty kinds of nutrients in it. Especially protein and rich in fat. Melon seeds also have medicinal value. Compendium of Materia Medica says that watermelon seeds "stir-fry, tonify the middle energizer, clear lung and moisten intestines, and harmonize the middle energizer to quench thirst".

In recent decades, "sunflower seeds" have joined the ranks of melon seeds with a sudden appearance. Today, China's melon seeds have gone abroad and entered the United States, Japan and other countries that are very picky about food hygiene ... (Yin)

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