What do we know about lemon? Sour, aromatic, delicious in tea, an irreplaceable remedy for colds. But there are other, very interesting facts that we will tell you about today.
- India and China are considered to be the homeland of lemon. There is a theory according to which lemons came to Greece with the soldiers of Alexander the Great after their campaign in India. Then the lemon was called the Indian apple. Another theory says that the Arabs brought the lemon to Europe and the Middle East.
- But in the distant 17th century in Russia, there were no lemons. Only the rich could eat them: they ordered salted lemons from Holland.
- The origin of the word “lemon” is attributed to the Malay and Chinese languages. Le-mo in Malay and li-mung in Chinese means good for mothers.
- They even make riddles about lemons and write funny stories. From them you can learn that with the help of lemon you can disrupt the performance of a brass band: it is enough to eat a lemon in front of the musicians. Those will begin to salivate profusely, and they will not be able to play the wind instruments.
- There is a theory that the lemon was the bone of contention in the Bible. According to another theory, it was a pomegranate, as we have already written about.
- Despite the “bone of contention” from the theory above, lemon is considered the fruit of friendship. Otto Schmidt, a famous polar explorer, inoculated a lemon in 1940 – before that the tree was grafted by breeder Zorin. Since then, an interesting tradition has started: people from different countries began to graft this tree. In 1957, the lemon tree was named the Friendship tree. By this time, 167 vaccinations have been given to lemon. Today there are more than 3,000 of them, just imagine! Yes, the tree is still alive and growing in Sochi.
- Foreign journalists call some athletes lemons. For example, the French called Evgeny Kafelnikov a lemon – he was taciturn, cold, and did not make contact.
- Lemon is often found in Spanish folklore. There he symbolizes unhappy love. But the orange is responsible for the happy one.
- Every year, 14 million tons of lemons are harvested in the world. Most lemons are harvested in Mexico and India.
- Lemon was listed in the Guinness Book of Records. A simple Israeli farmer has grown a lemon weighing more than 5 kilograms on his plot. Can you imagine what size it should be? By the way, the record cannot be broken for 14 years already.
