Watermelon

西瓜 suika

Watermelon is the taste of a Japanese summer; a cheerful seasonal motif and a nod to the famous watermelon wrap (suika tsutsumi).

Watermelon in Japan by the 14th–17th century; popular from the Edo period

Accounts differ: one dictionary dates watermelon's arrival to the Nanbokuchō period (a poem in the Kūgeshū), another to the early Edo period from China. It spread from the late 16th century and by the 1660s was eaten by samurai of all ranks. As a cheerful summer motif it belongs to modern yukata, tenugui and furoshiki design rather than classical pattern books.

Linked with the suika-tsutsumi wrap for carrying a whole watermelon in a furoshiki.