Water Gourds, also known as flaskia, kratounes, or karikes, are a type of gourd with large fruits of various shapes, whose shell becomes particularly hard and durable when dried. No two are ever the same.
Although they are not edible, they are among the oldest cultivated plants in the world, having found countless uses as utensils and, most notably, as containers for carrying water and wine.
To grow, they require a lot of water and months of drying under specific conditions. You may have seen them in a traditional village grocery store or in a courtyard. Today, they are rarely cultivated and hard to find. People just don’t plant them anymore.