Caveman's Club

[donedigging]

Evening to you all,

Mother-in-law has sent me a packet of seeds from France called "Coloquinte" or Caveman's Club. I have tried to search the RHS but have found nothing that lets me know if they are edible, or if they are gords.
Mother-in-law thinks they are a type of pepper?

Any help would be gratefull
Thanks
dd

[Snadger]

Peppers seeds are like tomatoe seeds and gourd seeds are like cucurbit seeds i.e big oval and flat!

[zazen999]

coloquinte - Google Image Search

google can be your friend!!!

Description

It is a herbaceous, annual or long-lived crawling plant, with angular and hard stems. The sheets, alternate, long from 5 to 10 cm, have a limb cut out into 5 to 7 lobes separated by broad sines, the central lobe is sometimes oval. The flowers monoïques, solitary, appear the summer with the armpit of the sheets. The yellow corolla of color comprises five lobes.

The spherical Fruit from 5 to 10 cm in diameter (of the size of a small orange), resembling small a Water melon, of green color shandy of clear yellow, becomes completely yellow with maturity. The flesh light, spongy, of yellow color orange, is very bitter and toxic. The many ovoid and flattened seeds, of color varying from orange to brown the noirâtre, are edible.

The substances giving bitter savor are the Colocynthine and the Colocynthétine.

There exists a certain confusion between this species and the Pastèque, whose seeds are used in the same way and who formerly bore the scientific name of Colocynthis citrullus .

[bazzaboy]

dd, if you do a general Google search on Coloquinte Caveman's Club you'll get 35 references, all in French but some with translation facilities. As far as I can see they're listed as "decorative" which suggests gourds. b.

[bazzaboy]

"Snap!" zz! Google is just phe-nom-en-al, isn't it... b.

[zazen999]

Yup...it's my first port of call for almost everything these days.

[cupcake]

How did we exist without it?

[Two_Sheds]

...and why don't people use it?

[Eyren]

And here was me looking at the thread list and wondering a) who Caveman was and b) why he had formed a club

I really shouldn't surf the interwebz so early in the morning...

[Nicos]

And here was me looking at the thread list and wondering a) who Caveman was and b) why he had formed a club

me too- although I'm often confused as a Cave- goddess!)

[bobleponge]

I dont use Google cos I'm toooo stoooopid. I want to type in a question and get an answer, Google gives me far too much rubbish.
I am sadly a bear of very little brain.
I do however know that the Caveman Club is a gourd, not really edible, although I spose you could if you wanted to.

[Flummery]

I assumed someone was starting a new Social Group for big butch blokes! (I wanted to know why us Big Butch Lasses couldn't join!)

[donedigging]

Many thanks to you all for all the useful advice as always.

dd