Melon Disappointment

[Jason Perlow]

Yet again, I bought another $2.50 canteloupe at the supermarket. I squeezed it, I sniffed it, detecting the correct muskiness. Brought it home, sliced it open, only to find out that the flesh was hard as a cucumber and tasted about about the same. The in-sink garbage disposal had a good meal tonight.

Is it current conventional thought that you should NEVER eat a melon, with the possible exception of a watermelon, on the day you buy it from a supermarket? Are there any really reliable telltale signs for knowing whether the melon is really ready for consumption? Is it simply just a matter of waiting two or three days? Are melons EVER ready to eat from the supermarket?

Be it as it may, my $4 honeydew is going to wait a few days before I crack his head open.

[turkeybone]

I always was taught to check for the smell and the slip.. the spot where the melon is taken off the vine -- if that isn't a clean break, then the melon was picked immaturely, so even if it ripens it won't achieve full flavor.

[cathrynapple]

or just leave it for days and days. i cantelope take a loooong time to be overripe, and is best at its juciest, when you can make indentations in the skin if you push hard.

or maybe i'm just weird?

(i like the juice just pouring out of it)

[sparrowgrass]

I never see a ripe cantaloupe at the grocery store. Maybe at the farmers market, but never at the grocery store.

When I buy cantaloupes, I look for the indentation where the stem was--as turkeybone said. Then, the melon sits on the counter at home til it smells like a cantaloupe and is just a little yielding to the touch.

Edited because I can't read. But I am a nice person.

Edited May 1, 2006 by sparrowgrass (log)

[elfin]

When buying a whole melon (watermelon, cantelope or musk) at the store, I always look at the fruit that is already sliced in half and cling wrapped to ascertain ripeness. The store takes it from the same fruit bins. It has saved me from buying pink rather than red watermelon and you can tell the ripeness of the other melons by the color (more bold and soft). Either the melons are rock hard or over ripe.

[markk]

Are there any really reliable telltale signs for knowing whether the melon is really ready for consumption?

This has been happening to me for at least the past year! When I was a kid, my little old grandmother taught me how to pick fruit - you bring it up to your nose, close your eyes, and take a deep sniff, indeed. "How it smell is how it's going to taste", she taught me. And for many years, that was true - well, maybe not for plums, but melons for sure.

And now they've found a way to make them smell ripe and delicious and be like cucumbers inside, indeed. I just fell for this again at a fancy organic produce store, and mine was considerably more than $2.50, and down the drain it went, inedible.

[Kent Wang]

Instead of feeding it into the disposal, toss it in a blender and make a fruit shake or cocktail.

[andrewB]

I always was taught to check for the smell and the slip.. the spot where the melon is taken off the vine -- if that isn't a clean break, then the melon was picked immaturely, so even if it ripens it won't achieve full flavor.

←

you can also press on the slip to determine ripeness....

[Milagai]

Instead of feeding it into the disposal, toss it in a blender and make a fruit shake or cocktail.

←

or treat like a cucumber and make salad.

or google "kalan" for a kerala style recipe

milagai

[Jason Perlow]

Okay, on the opposite ends of the spectrum, Honeydews.

I've got this honeydew that has been sitting on my kitchen table for like close to three weeks now. Still hard as a rock and no indication of loose seeds when I shake it.

When can I eat this sonofabitch?

[markk]

Yesterday I bought some Prosciutto di Parma at the Shop Rite (great prosciutto, great price) so I bought a honeydew melon, and there were no indications from it that it would be any good. As it turns out, it was sweeter than sugar! I also bought a canteloupe from the A&P on the way home that didn't give off great hope, but it wasn't terrible. (I had sliced them open a bit in advance in case I needed to know that we couldn't eat them, and I wound up mixing the slices in a bowl for a while so that the honeydew could sweeten the canteloupe. I don't know that honeydews ripen at all - I would say go for it; if the supermarket one I got was ripe, chances are yours is too?

[BeeZee]

ech, I'm not sure we can rely on any supermarket melons this time of the year. I had a cantaloupe the other day which was OK, just a bit soft bordering on mealy, but not bad in flavor. Honeydew is one of those that I find either spectacular or totally disappointing and I have much worse luck picking them out vs. 'loupes. Bad melon = decent salsa.

[Pontormo]

Honeydew are the biggest mystery.

I personally avoid any kind of melon that yields to the touch---except at the slip. Looking at the spot on the rind where the melon once lay on the ground gives you a good idea if the fruit is too ripe.

One other thing to do is to shake the melon and see if you hear the seeds and juice slosh around. This is chancy, since lots of sloshing might mean the stuff inside is overripe. A little in a perfumed fruit? Sometimes perfect, sometimes past prime.

Another thing to do with less than perfect melons is to give them to your wife. They make incredible molded desserts. I did one once with cantaloupe, yogurt and gelatin in the shape of a lobster with a fresh blueberry sauce.

[russ parsons]

i don't know how i missed this the first time around. there'll be a whole chapter on this in my book next spring. that ad out of the way, the quick lesson is: there are two kinds of melons (way oversimplifying) and they have different ripeness indicators. melons with netted or ridged rinds (cantaloups, muskmelons, etc), are pretty easy to tell--look for the slip, look for the golden background color, look for the pale spot where it rested on the ground and, above all, smell. when they are really ripe, jiggle them and you'll feel the seeds move around inside (when they are overripe, you'll hear them).

smooth-skinned melons (honeydews, etc), are tougher. the color should be deep and creamy, there will be the rest spot. press at the stem end and there should be a slight give (don't worry about a trace of stem, they do not slip). with a really good melon there'll be sugar spots (dark flecks of dried syrup on the skin). there will be no perfume (fun fact: their latin group name is inodorous)

it is really rare to find a perfectly ripe melon at the market, though it does happen.

[ludja]

Where do melons come from this time of year?

I usually buy melons only from, say, July through September. I usually have luck with most melons bought at that time of year. I'm not sure where most melons are grown in the US, but that would seem to be the season.

[russ parsons]

uh, good point ludja. you'd think the seasonality nazi would have included that. melons are hot weather fruits. they really need extreme high temperatures to build sugar. (traditionally, in california they've been used as a second crop to grow in the worst part of summer in cotton fields). i almost never buy melons until halfway through july. they are pulling them now out of the el centro area on the mexican border, but even there i don't think they come close to that splendor that is a great melon from the west side of the san joaquin valley picked in mid august or september. mendota is the cantaloupe capitol of the world!

[Catew]

Melons are very tricky things. One year, I had a bumper crop of cantelopes in my garden. I eagerly waited for them to ripen -- and didn't cut into one until they were falling off the vine and so exquisitely fragrant that I just couldn't put it off any longer. Cut into one and saw perfect color, lots of juice, and oh the smell. But the taste? Water. All of them were the same: they smelled and looked great and tasted of nothing.

I called the cooperative extension to ask about this phenomenon and they told me that the fault in my case was a recent large (1" plus) rainfall. The plants took up the water, which diluted the taste.

So, no advice, but much empathy.

[weinoo]

I don't believe melons ripen any more once they are picked - they will get softer, though. Is this true, russ?

Here in NY, I am seeing cantaloupe from Costa Rica and Mexico. Hard as a rock usually, not worth it even at $1 a piece.

[russ parsons]

reticulatus melons (netted melons) will ripen after picking (they will become more fragrant, but they will not gain sugar). inodorous melons (smooth melons) will ripen some, but not nearly as much.

catew: water (or the lack thereof) is critical at harvest of most fruits. there was a study by some stone fruit scientists that found that withholding water the last two weeks of picking did more to increase sugar levels than an extra day on the tree.

[ludja]

Thanks for all the good information, Russ. Looking forward to hearing more about your upcoming book as well. Does it focus on produce?

I admit, I was kind of surprised that no one else had mentioned buying them in season as I've always looked at them as a very seasonal fruit.

[russ parsons]

i'm afraid melons are like strawberries--once highly seasonal fruits that have now become breakfast parsley. but they can still be amazing when you get them at the right place and time.

the book does focus on produce and agriculture. working title is "how to pick a peach."

[jgarner53]

When I was recently in Tokyo, goggling at the prices on the packaged fruit in department stores, I did kind of have to chuckle at the melons for sale. Each one was lovingly wrapped in tissue and propped up in what looked like a velvet lined box. Prices started at about $35 and went up (I saw one close to $100! ), and every single one of these melons (cantaloupes) had the stem still attached, which meant to me, at least, that they had been picked way too early and probably had very little flavor, for all their priciness.

Anyone ever eaten a $100 Japanese gift melon?

[aliénor]

a while ago i listened and saw a program on the telly re:picking honeydew melons. since then i have been batting near 100%. my husband will not go near me when i am selecting melons-he gets too embarassed. the trick to this is to use a dry hand and slowly caress the melon. a ripe melon is slitely sticky on the surface. almost like feeling the nap on velvet. notice that an unripe melon is silky smooth. remember you must use a dry hand and the melon skin must be dry. just today i went to the local supermarket and handled about 20 melons, but i found one delicious melon. we had it tonite and it was oh so good. oh yes, the skin is yellower than the unripe ones.

try this tick

[russ parsons]

just outof curiosity, where do you live alienor? the sticky skin is a great tip--it's the same thing as my "sugar spots." but in the us, produce managers usually wash and polish their melons to the point that doesn't help. also, where are you getting great melons today?

[aliénor]

i live in a small town in new hampshire and have to drive a bit to get to a large chain supermarket-like price chopper. they don't seem to wash and/or polish their honey dew melons and they have a very large selection which means i can usually get a ripe one . even if i have to pull one out from the bottom of the heap. in my town we do have a large coop grocery but they only display 5 or 6 melons at a time, not enough of a selection.

just got another one-yummy, slurp, sooo good