Melon lovers
 

... post your melon shopping, dining and mixing and matching stories here.

I love a good, juicy melon as a dessert or as part of a cocktail.
Spring is here, when some of our thoughts turn to melons.

the icrecream discussion brought me to think of melons, but the variations in sweetness, tartness, acidity and firmness make them suitable for a whole range of appetisers, desserts and in our drinks.

Have you enjoyed a melon (part thereof) on your plate or in your glass, lately?


Cue Herbie Hancock... :p

I just want to know how to tell if a honeydew is ripe. It's the only kind of melon I like.

I usually enjoy my fresh melon as part of my desert fruit plate. Good for the taste, good for the health. ^

Melon can be excellent after a slightly oily meal, such as my local Peking Duck / seafood restaurant. ^ I also like orange quadrants, for their acidity, to cleanse my palate.

It is a very rare time that I'd have icecream after such a meal, but melons and/or citrus is always a welcome dessert.

fyi...

At the store the other day they had those plasmas over the fruit section giving meal ideas/talking about stuff etc.... The guy on the screen said those dark scars you see on the melon indicate sugar content. He said the more "scars" there are the sweeter it will be. I can't vouch for this though, blame Lucky's if this is wrong :)

As a general rule, picking fruit based on weight (relative to size) for juiciness and aroma is how I try to pick fruit.

Avoiding supermarkets in favour of local fruit shops helps too, if it means the food is really fresh, rather than well-stored. :)

I push on the canteloupe's "navel". The more give, the riper the fruit. I'll be looking for dark scars next time. Just because a fruit is ripe is no guarantee it's sweet.

I'm a big fan of the classic prosciutto and melon. Sweet and salty at the same time. Mmmmm.

I thought this was gonna be about something else, but then I realized that it's DiningBuzz, not OMNI.

Anyhow, I recently had a watermelon that was yellow inside, not the traditional red. The flavor was the same, but the color kind of threw me off. Did I get some different variety of watermelon, or was this one bad? I did have to throw a good bit of it away as it was "past it's prime". For what it's worth, I got it at a local farmer's market.

The way I always check for a melon's ripeness is to act like a dog: smell its bottom. The stronger the smell, the riper the melon.

From Wikipedia:

There are more than twelve hundred [12] varieties of watermelon ranging in size from less than a pound, to more than two hundred pounds with flesh that is red, orange, yellow, or white.[13] Several notable varieties are included here.

* Carolina Cross: This variety of watermelon produced the current world record watermelon weighing 262 pounds. It has green skin, red flesh and can commonly produce fruit between 65, and 150 pounds. It takes about 90 days from planting to harvest. [14]

* Yellow Crimson Watermelon: variety of watermelon that has a yellow colored flesh. This particular type of watermelon has been described as "sweeter" and more "honey" flavored than the more popular red flesh watermelon.[15]

* Orangeglo: This variety has a very sweet orange pulp, and is a large oblong fruit weighing 9-14kg (20-30 pounds). It has a light green rind with jagged dark green stripes. It takes about 90-100 days from planting to harvest.[16]

* The Moon and Stars variety of watermelon has been around since 1926.[17] The rind is purple/black and has many small yellow circles (stars) and one or two large yellow circles (moon). The melon weighs 9-23kg (20-50 pounds).[18] The flesh is pink or red and has brown seeds. The foliage is also spotted. The time from planting to harvest is about 90 days.[19]

* Cream of Saskatchewan: This variety consists of small round fruits, around 25cm (10 inches) in diameter. It has a quite thin, light green with dark green striped rind, with sweet white flesh and black seeds. It can grow well in cool climates. It was originally brought to Saskatchewan, Canada by Russian immigrants. These melons take 80-85 days from planting to harvest.[20]

* Melitopolski: This variety has small round fruits roughly 28-30cm (11-12 inches) in diameter. It is an early ripening variety that originated from the Volga River region of Russia, an area known for cultivation of watermelons. The Melitopolski watermelons are seen piled high by vendors in Moscow in summer. This variety takes around 95 days from planting to harvest.[21]

* Densuke Watermelon: This variety has round fruit up to 25 lb (11 kg). The rind is black with no stripes or spots. It is only grown on the island of Hokkaido, Japan, where up to 10 000 watermelons are produced every year. In June 2008, one of the first harvested watermelons was sold at an auction for 650 000 yen (6300 USD), making the most expensive watermelon ever sold. The average selling price is generally around 25 000 yen (250 USD).

have been hearing that here in TX people take and make a bowl out of their watermelon core (just the middle, they eat it up) and then put blue bell vanilla in it and let it melt a bit and enjoy.
Some do the same with honeydew/cantaloupe here, I'd enver heard of it but seems to be a big thing this year here.

Yummm! Lovely ripe honeydew or cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a late summer classic for dessert. I've never had Blue Bell (I've heard it's legendary), but any good fresh local vanilla ice cream would be great for this.

And cold watermelon chunks whizzed about in a blender with a modicum of gin result in a true adult beverage pleasure :D Down South, "plugging" a chilled watermelon with equally chilled vodka some hours before consumption is not unknown in the summertime.

Let me ask.... my favor melon is Watermelon.... nothing like ice cold Watermelon... as long as it is crunchy.

I have to ask.... does anyone like Salt on their Watermelon? I find it brings out the flavor. :)

At lunch today, we discussed adding salt to fruit! Apparently, adding salt brings out the sweetness of peaches, cantaloupe, and grapefruit, so I'd guess it does that for watermelon too. :D

be sure to check it out if you are ever in Texas or Dubai(yes DUBAI has a large amount of BlueBell due to all the Texans in oil business)

Only if I am eating it right then and there...it loses enough water without the salt!

My wife salts everything....she'd salt cereal if she thought I'd let her get away with it. Her habit is sufficiently bad that our almost 6-year-old and 3-year-old think it's a special treat to lick their hand. dump some salt on it, and lick the salt off.

That said, I had to agree with her when we had a fresh watermelon last week and she got out the normal (not sea) salt shaker -- it was actually pretty good!

I also subscribe to the thought that the heavier the melon is compared to its size, the more ripe it is -- this seems to be especially true with cantaloupes.

My family's into lime juice on honeydews--my grandmother was the queen of serving a wedge of honeydew with lime as an appetizer. (One of my cousins seems to hate them to this day for that reason... :rolleyes:)

Seems that honeydews rarely have a smell anymore (ie, they're harder to choose nowadays) and don't get as soft, either. I chose one the other day that tasted great, but could have been a bit softer. Seems like an argument for buying at farmers' markets, but I usually only find cantaloupe and watermelon at the markets here.

Salt is good on watermelon, apple slices, and pineapple.

Apple slices? I'll have to try that!

I've salted watermelon plenty of times.

I've seen my southern relatives put salt and pepper on their cantaloupe with breakfast.

Actually, when a honeydew melon is ripe, the skin will have a distinctly tacky texture to it when you rub your hand along the surface. When it's not ripe, the skin will be smooth and slippery to your hand.

In addition, ripe Honeydews will smell ripe, unripe ones will smell hardly at all. The tacky skin method is foolproof, however, once you know what a ripe one feels like.

And Gallagher assaulted watermelons plenty of times.