The saying “eat the watermelon but spit out the seeds” means to take the good from a given situation and leave behind the bad.
For those who grew up in the 1940s and ’50s in a rural area where watermelon patches were very much a part of family farming: do you remember sneaking out to the patch, bursting open a melon and eating just the heart? Then there were times at picnics when you held the contest seeking who could spit their seeds the greatest distance? It was one of the best parts of summer. Yes, watermelons had hard black seeds in those days.
The earliest evidence of watermelon consumption comes from the seeds discovered in Northern Africa, carbon-dated to 5,000 years ago. Nearby Egypt was growing watermelons 3,000 years ago. These were small, thick-skinned and bitter. For years they were greatly used as a source of water like a canteen (melons are 92% water) and people roasted the seeds for nourishment.
The watermelon rolled into many countries over the centuries, and it is beli...