Choosing the right melon is one of the more confusing rites of summer—and you probably don’t know the half of it. Some people say you should thump melons. Some say you should give them a sniff. Some claim the secret is all in the skin. Some tell you to play with their bellybuttons (the melons’, not the people’s). They’re all right, and they’re all wrong. It all depends on what kind of melon you’re talking about (and, come to think about it, just exactly what you mean by “melon”).
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has paid melons more than a passing glance that they are members of the gourd family, along with squash and cucumbers. Collectively, these are known as cucurbits. The specific genus that includes melons (well, most melons) is Cucumis. As you can probably tell by the name, it also includes cucumbers.
Within the Cucumis genus, melons are subdivided into several groups—just how many depends on whom you’re talking to. The first group is called Inodorus (the name literally means “without smell”), or winter melons, even though they are harvested in the summer, just like the others. They include large melons such as the casaba and honeydew. They usually have green flesh, but not always (there are orange-fleshed honeydews, which are very good, too). Inodorus melons have fairly crisp, slightly grainy flesh and tend to be very sweet, with a slightly honeyed quality to the flavor.
The second important group is Cantalupensis. These are smaller melons with scaly skin and usually orange, melting flesh. They tend to have a highly floral, slightly musky flavor. As you can probably guess, these include cantaloupes. But wait: what you probably think of as a cantaloupe isn’t a cantaloupe at all; it’s a muskmelon. A true cantaloupe is a melon such as the French Charentais or Cavaillon. (“Cantaloupe” is the “Frenchification” of the Italian Cantalupo, which was the name of the pope’s summer estate outside Rome. Supposedly, one of those fifteenth-century “gourmet popes” had the seeds for these brought from the Near East.) Probably the most common true Cantalupensis melon in the United States is the Israeli import Ha-Ogen.
In fact, that melon you think of as a cantaloupe might not even be considered part of the Cantalupensis family—depending on which botanist you ask. Some scientists and growers recognize a third class of melons called Reticulatus. These differ from Cantalupensis melons because their skin is netted rather than scaly. Other than that, they’re pretty much the same, although their aroma can be a little more floral—hence the name muskmelon.
It’s not really important that you know the ins and outs of all these different families—at the rate that farmers are experimenting with new varieties, that’s quite a challenge. What is important is that you recognize the difference between smooth-skinned and rough-skinned melons, because you select these melons in very different ways.
Rough-skinned melons are the easiest to choose, because they give you so many clues. The first thing to check is the netting or scaling. It should be tan or golden in color and definitely raised above the background skin, which should be golden in color, not green. Some rough-skinned melons are also ribbed. In a mature melon, those ribs are more pronounced.
Inspect the skin for the pale spot the French call the couche, which is the place where the melon rested on the ground. It should be creamy or golden and pronounced, but ideally not too much so. If there is no couche, the melon may have been picked too early. If the couche is too big, the melon rested in one place for too long. Really good farmers turn their melons so no single spot touches the ground for the entire time. A clean bellybutton is important, too. All rough-skinned melons are harvested at what farmers call “full slip,” which means that the fruit slips cleanly away from the vine, leaving no trace of a stem in the bellybutton. Any stem at all indicates that the fruit was harvested too early. One of the best ways to choose a rough-skinned melon is also the most obvious: give it a sniff. When fully ripe, these melons develop a heavenly, musky floral perfume that you can smell at the other end of the produce section.
Sadly, the only one of these clues that works for smooth-skinned melons is the couche. These fruits are devilishly hard to choose. They don’t have netting, so you can’t check that. They don’t “slip” from the stem, so the bellybutton is no help. And they usually don’t have a smell. You don’t have to be psychic to choose a good melon, but you do have to be extraordinarily sensitive. (Come to think of it, a little ESP couldn’t hurt.)
The first thing to look for is color. This is extremely subtle, the difference between a “hard” green or white and a more golden “creamy” color. If you look at several melons, you’ll see the distinction. When these melons are fully mature, they also develop a slightly waxy texture.
The best indicator of quality I’ve found in smooth-skinned melons is what growers call “sugar spots.” These are brown flecks on the surface. Unfortunately, you’ll see them only at farmers’ markets. Supermarket produce managers tend to regard them as imperfections and wash them off.
So now you know how you choose a mature melon, but remember that there is a difference between ripeness and maturity. Melons continue to ripen after picking—the flesh softens, and the aromas and flavors become more intense—but they don’t get any sweeter. This softening is usually most evident at the blossom end of the fruit. Press gently: if there is a little give, the melon is ripe; if you have a melon that still feels very firm, leave it at room temperature for a couple of days.
So much for the Cucumis melons. The elephant in the room that hasn’t been discussed is the watermelon, perhaps the most popular melon of all—at least in the United States. Watermelons belong to a different branch of the Cucurbit family: Citrullus. Their closest relative is the bitter apple, a small, hard fruit that can be poisonous in moderate doses. It used to be that all watermelons were red, had seeds and were gargantuan in size. But there has been a virtual arms race in watermelon breeding over the past several years, and now we have watermelons that are yellow, watermelons that have no seeds (actually, they do, but they’re few and underdeveloped) and watermelons that are built for two rather than two hundred. Recently, breeders have even come up with watermelons that are the perfect shape and size to fit in a refrigerator.
You select all of them the same way, which is pretty much the way you choose a smooth-skinned melon. Check the couche, which should be well developed, and check the skin, which should have a slightly waxy quality. If you have a good ear, you can try the thump test, too. This is the traditional way to choose a watermelon, but I think it’s the hardest to get right. Rap the melon near the center with your knuckles. With a ripe melon, there will be a certain resonance: it will sound like knocking on a hollow-core door.
WHERE THEY’RE GROWN: Roughly two thirds of the spring harvest of cantaloupes is pretty evenly divided between Arizona and California, with Georgia and Texas chipping in the rest. Spring honeydews come mostly from California, with some from Texas, and spring watermelons come from Florida and Texas. In the summer California’s Central Valley harvest kicks into high gear. Mendota, a small town on the valley’s western slope, bills itself as the Cantaloupe Center of the World. California produces more than three quarters of the nation’s summer cantaloupes and all but a smattering of its honeydews. Georgia and Texas are the dominant states for summer watermelons, with California and South Carolina also contributing important amounts.
HOW TO CHOOSE: Good cantaloupes are deeply scaled or netted and have a golden background color, clean separation from the stem and a deep floral fragrance. Good honeydews have a creamy color and a waxy texture to the skin. Good watermelons have a waxy skin and sound hollow when thumped lightly.
HOW TO STORE: Store all melons at room temperature. Cantaloupes and honeydews continue to ripen after being picked. This ripening makes them more fragrant and complex, but it doesn’t make them any sweeter. If you prefer your melons chilled, put them in the refrigerator overnight. Much longer than that, and you’ll see the rinds begin to pit and decay.
HOW TO PREPARE: Split cantaloupe and honeydew melons in half and spoon out the seeds. Watermelons need only be cut into sections.
ONE SIMPLE DISH: Melons are sweet, but they are surprisingly good when paired with salty or peppery companions. Wrap chunks of honeydew or cantaloupe in prosciutto or other thinly sliced cured meat.
For most of us, putting food in the refrigerator is a reflex, not a considered act. We get home from the grocery store, sort out the packaged goods and shove everything else in the fridge—potatoes and peaches, berries and basil, all treated alike. But before you do this, stop and pay attention to what you’re doing. In some cases, it takes only a day at room temperature to ruin a fruit or vegetable. In other cases, it takes only a couple of hours of cold. And in a few cases, the question of whether to refrigerate or not depends on the circumstances.
The best first step is understanding what a refrigerator does and why it can be important. Even after picking, fruits and vegetables continue to take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide and heat. For most produce items, chilling slows the rate of that respiration. Generally, the closer you can come to 32 degrees, the more slowly respiration will occur. (That is the freezing temperature of water, but most fruits and vegetables won’t freeze until several degrees colder because of the sugar they contain.) Different varieties of fruits and vegetables respire at different rates, ranging from those that hardly breathe at all (dates and nuts) to those that seem to be almost panting (asparagus, mushrooms, peas and corn).
At the same time, fruits and vegetables give off moisture, which is called “transpiration.” Slowing transpiration is the purpose of the refrigerator’s small, tightly sealed crisper. Looked at on a cellular level, most plant material is predominantly made up of water held in little cellulose sacks. When those sacks are full, the fruits and vegetables are firm. When the sacks start to lose moisture, the fruits and vegetables soften and wilt. Different fruits and vegetables transpire at different rates, roughly equivalent to their rates of respiration. Some have thick skins that slow the rate, such as apples, beets, hard-shelled squash, potatoes and citrus fruits. Some have hardly any peel at all, most notably lettuces and other greens.
If it were as simple as remembering the relative rates of respiration and transpiration, the whole question of whether to refrigerate would be a lot easier. But there is another layer of complexity. In some fruits and vegetables, chilling actually causes physiological damage. Refrigerating a tomato, for example, breaks down the chemical compounds that give the fruit its flavor and fragrance. Once chilled, a tomato may look just as pretty, but it will never regain its flavor. Potatoes convert starch to sugar if refrigerated and take on a sweet taste. Some fruits and vegetables that suffer chill damage might surprise you. Cucumbers, for example, develop soft spots on the surface. So do eggplants. Although most leafy vegetables and herbs need to be refrigerated, chilling wipes out basil, turning it black within a couple of hours.
Some fruits and vegetables can be refrigerated only in certain situations, such as after they’re fully ripe. Peaches that have a dry, pithy, cottony texture and weak flavor have suffered chill damage as a result of being stored at the wrong temperature before they’re fully ripe (see chilling injury).
It may be too obvious to mention, but any fruit or vegetable that has been cut up must be refrigerated, even if it is something you would normally leave out. Although chilling may damage it in some ways, it is far better than risking the spoilage that will come so quickly if it is left at room temperature.
This is a lot to remember, even for professionals. The tomato and stone fruit industries in particular have intensive programs to try to educate workers in warehouses and grocery stores about proper handling. Probably the easiest thing to do is to make a copy of the following list and keep it on your fridge (along with all those art projects and report cards). You should refrigerate all fruits and vegetables not listed here.
BANANAS AND PLANTAINS
POTATOES AND SWEET POTATOES
STORAGE ONIONS AND GARLIC
TOMATOES
CUCUMBERS
EGGPLANTS
MELONS (only after fully ripened)
PEPPERS
AVOCADOS
PEACHES, PLUMS AND NECTARINES
PEARS