Ronsard's Melons

The modern variety of Charentais melon, with its yellow netted skin and green ribs, was developed in the Poitou-Charente area, just to our south-west, in the 1920s, but the original Charentais Melon goes back to the 15th century, brought here by Charles VIII as a prize from his Italian campaign. He had them grown in the Touraine Loire Valley, close to the many chateaux which were now serving as luxury country residences for the King and his courtiers. By the 16th century the court poet, Pierre de Ronsard, was moved to write a hommage to eating melon in the summer by the side of a stream.

 

Pierre de Ronsard, regarded as "the Prince of poets and the poet of Princes", was Prior of the Priory of St Cosme from 1565 to 1585.

 

 Pierre de Ronsard's private apartments at the Prieuré de Saint Cosme.

 
Pompons (or pepons), imported from Italy during the Renaissance, are melons that Ronsard, a keen gardener, grew himself at the Prieuré de Saint-Cosme. Behind his house, built in 1348, there is an 'exotic' kitchen garden dedicated to Ronsard's taste for the new fruits and vegetables that were appearing in France at the time. In 1565, Ronsard offered a basket of his melons to the royal family (Charles IX and Queen Mother Catherine de Medici), who were stopping off at the nearby château du Plessis-Lès-Tours, with this poem for the occasion:
 

Vous qui semblez de façons et de gestes

Aux immortels, imitant les Célestes,

Prenez de moi ces pompons et ces fruits.

Les-vous offrant, je ne crains que personne

Blâme mon don : car, Sire, je vous donne

Non pas beaucoup, mais tout ce que je puis.

 

A la Reine, Pierre de Ronsard, 1565