cantaloupe

If you know a little about romance languages, you could maybe look at the word cantaloupe and guess that it means something like “wolf song” or “singing wolf” or something thereabouts. The canta part looks like the Spanish, Italian and Latin words for the bern “to sing,” while the loupe part looks like a lot of those languages’ word for “wolf” — lupo in Italian and Spanish, lupus in Latin, loupe in French. But why the hell would a melon be named after singing wolves? Apparently the melon takes its western name from the Italian town of Cantalupo di Sabina, which was allegedly the first place in western Europe where the cantaloupe was grown after being brought over from Armenia. It’s supposed that the town got its name because it was near where wolves could be heard at some point in time, but it’s also conjectured that that might be a folk etymology. If it is, I didn’t find anyone else’s guesses on the English internet for how else it might have gotten that name, though there is more than one city in Italy named Cantalupo and even a Cantaloup in France. Also apparently one time a pope died from eating two whole cantaloupes in one sitting.

Whatever the case, “singing wolf” is still a pretty boss association for a melon you eat at brunch.