!Nara Melons

According to archaeologists, pieces of pottery found near Walvis Bay had thick layers of soot believed to have come from cooking 
!Nara melons.


This is how it is done: the flesh of the melon was removed with bone knives and stewed over a lowfire until it became a thin soup, when the seeds were separated from the concentrate.

When cooked, the melon concentrate was tipped from the pot into a thin puddle on the sand, where it was left to dry before being stored.

The dried concentrate remains edible for more than a year.

The food energy value of dried concentrate is more than three times as high as that of the fresh melon.