Desert Survival Food · Wild Melon
Tsamma Melon
Photo: Bougnat87 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Its flesh is over 90% water, and in the dry season San hunters could rely on tsamma melons as their main source of water for weeks at a time, even scooping out the pulp to wash.
This small, pale-fleshed wild relative of the watermelon grows low along sandy Kalahari soil; its flesh is eaten raw for hydration, its leaves cooked as a vegetable, and its black seeds roasted or pressed for oil.
Why it's made this way: Long before boreholes reached the Kalahari, San and Nama communities timed their movements around tsamma season — a good tsamma year meant survival was possible deep in the desert, for both people and their livestock.
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