Melons from La Mancha

Type of Denomination of Origin

Melons from La Mancha.

This fruit is frequently mentioned in literature. In El Libro del buen amor and also in Arcipreste de Hita by Juan Ruiz, which dates from 1340, there appears Don Melón, one of the main aides to Dª Cuaresma in her battles against Don Carnal.

In the second part, chapter XXXII of Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, written in 1615, Sancho Panza, the young assistant to the travelling gentleman, mentions both the melon and the pomegranate. In his Obra satírica, Francisco de Quevedo also mentions the melon.

More recently, the writer Francisco García Pavón, a native of Tomelloso (Ciudad Real), in several literary passages set in places in his homeland, makes continual allusions to melon sellers, melon plantations and their trade.

The popular refrain includes numerous references to melons, to their nutritious qualities and the way they should be grown to produce more.