A Spikey Pig or A Horned Melon



This looks just like some of the monsters that Zoe has been making!! She saw this at the supermarket yesterday and said that we need to try it. So it came home with us!

I have never tried one before




I read that taste wise it was a cross between a banana, a kiwi and a cucumber. It resembles a cucumber. It is watery and full of seeds Its colour is kiwi-like. It has a mild banana flavor. I guess it is really high in potassium. But BEWARE mucilagenous! Slippery, Gelatinous.....A JELLY MELON describes it best.I expected it to be really yummy, mango like as I was sure that those spikes were protecting something delicious! I am going to try to dry the rind and use it for a craft project.

According to sites I looked at:

The horny melon, also called melano, African horned cucumber or melon, jelly melon, hedged gourd, English tomato, or kiwano (a registered trademark of New Zealand's Prinut Inc.), is a vine of African origin, grown for its fruit, which looks like an oval melon with horns and is very decorative. Once native only to the region of the Kalahari desert, the horned melon is now grown in California and New Zealand as well.

When picked green, and allowed to ripen to an orange color, the fruit tastes like a mix of cucumber and kiwifruit. The fully ripe melon has an orange rind with spikes. The yellow-green flesh has a gelatinous consistency and contains whitish seeds similar to those of a cucumber.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Cucurbitales
Family: Cucurbitaceae
Genus: Cucumis
Species: C. metuliferus