Watermelon are one of the true treats of summer, although they are available all year long from growers in Texas and or Mexico. They remain closest in appearance to their cousins cucumbers, especially the long seeded summer melons. But how do you know a good one?
Well, as with the other melons, there is no good way to be absolutely certain the melon you're looking over is top-notch (aside from slicing it open and tasting it. I have to admit that slicing it open and tasting (combined with careful examination of external clues) was how I came by my methods of estimating the probability that any given melon was good.
So where to begin? Pick up the melon (pick up several melons) and judge whether it (they) are heavy enough. If you've picked up one that is significantly lighter in weight than the others, put it back and try another. This is a measure of the moisture in the melon, and the heavier the better.
Next, roll the melon over and look at the surface. Brilliant colors? Good. Nice contrast between the darker greens and the lighter greens? Also good. Does the melon have a prominent yellow ground spot? You're getting there! Any obvious soft spots or brusing? No? Keep going. Nice and firm in your hands? Looking good so far.
Now, holding the melon in one hand (or lying on a flat surface if it's too heavy to hold with one hand, in which case lightly hold your hand on the surface), thump the side several times with the tips of your fingers. The melon should "ring" audibly and you should detect the vibration with the hand holding (or touching) it. I listen for a tone at roughly a frequency between B-flat and D below middle C. Below those tones (and this is where judgment enters the picture), I believe the melon is probably a bit over-ripe, although an exceptionally large watermelon may be perfectly okay. Much above those tones, and it's likely to be under-ripe.
If the melon doesn't "ring" the greatest likelihood is that the flesh inside is broken -- cracked, maybe multiply cracked. Pass.
There are several types -- flesh colors -- of melons. Red, of course, in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, seeded and seedless. I think the seeded varieties taste better, and of course you get the seeds to spit, one of the joys of summer. They are rarely available in the supermarket, where seedless red melons now rule. Pink melons, usually seedless are a variation on the red theme, and tasty enough. I had a customer once who insisted on pink flesh, claiming that true gourmets all knew pink was superior. No opinion about that on my part.
Yellow flesh watermelon are more rare, and (at least in my experience) often arrive at the store way over-ripe. A discerning observer will notice the skin of yellow melons usually have more narrow dark green stripes and wider light green stripes than red melons, and the shape is more round than oval. If you find a good one (same rules for selection apply), you've got real treat in store. Definitely a watermelon, but much sweeter.
My first job in produce was at a farmer's market with a guy who specialized in watermelon, and we judged perceived sweetness by, first, tasting the melon and, second, rubbing a little juice onto the glass of a portable refractometer and looking through the lens to observe the brix, a measurement of dissolved sugar in the juice. Good red melons fell typically into the range of 8-10 brix, while good yellow melons typically read in the range of 12-14 brix. Doesn't seem like much, but the difference is definitely noticable on the tongue.
Then there are orange melons, the rarest and sweetest of all at any level of marketing, in my experience. Orange melons are usually a bit smaller than either red or yellow, round like a yellow melon but striped more like a red melon. Same rules of selection apply, and listen carefully for a good clear below-middle-C "ring," because too many of the orange melons that do show up the supermarket (if they show up all) are way under-ripe. A good one, however, will be sweet-sweet-sweet. Brix on a good orange melon will usually fall into the range of 14-16 brix, although I remember distinctly one that showed just under 18 brix. Wow!
Hell of a way to get part of your daily requirement of fruits and vegetables, I can tell you!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Hello! Let's talk melons
It's mid-March and a few months before the really good melons start to come around. You'll be able to find some at local farmer's markets, and I urge you to try the local produce. But in most parts of the U.S., they'll be in grocery stores or supermarkets and grown in California, Texas, Mexico, or possibly Arizona. Note -- I don't wish to imply that I think it's right that these melons come from places that are, essentially, deserts (see Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner, copyright 1986, Viking Penguin, Inc., for a majorly exhaustive examination of what makes growing such water-dependent plants possible where rainfall is so scant), but it is a fact that, generally speaking, those are where supermarket melons come from.
Moving past politically charged questions about where the water to grow these luscious products come from, what are melons anyway? And more importantly, how do you, as a buyer, increase your chances of buying a really good one each time you visit the store?
Part the first, all melons, cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon -- all of them -- are basically cucumbers, highly selected and hybridized cukes, falling into different genuses, to be sure, but all, nevertheless, cucurbitaeceae. You can see this sometimes with the long, red seeded watermelons of late summer, which look like nothing more than a giant, bloated cucumber.
CANTALOUPE TYPES
Cantaloupes
I'll get to watermelon in a future post, but for now I'd like to concentrate on the muskmelon types, which include among others such delicacies as Cantaloupes, Crenshaws, Casabas, and Galias, along with one I've never seen or tasted, the Montreal Melon, a muskmelon once popular up and down the East Coast but largely supplanted by more durable varieties some years ago.
So part the second, how can you tell a good one? I wish this was a simple question to answer, particularly with regard to what we call cantaloupe (Europeans have a different melon called cantaloupe), but there are a few fairly reliable tests for tastiness, especially with mid- to late-season California cantaloupes.
First, did the melon slip off the vine? If the stem end shows a depression with no trace of stem remaining, that is a very good sign.
Second, does the melon look right? It should be symmetrical in shape, nicely rounded with even webbing all around (except for perhaps the ground spot) and evenly colored under the webbing. A sort of brownish-beige is just about right. No bruised or soft spots, please: Firm is best.
Third, does the melon give under gentle pressure on the stem or flower end (or both), and then spring back? This is an indication of internal readiness, of flesh that is ready to just melt in your mouth with that unique canteloupe spiciness, ample juice, and a bite that is next to heavenly with its combination of firmness and yielding softness.
Fourth (and last), how does the melon smell? I usually check the stem end for this. If the fragrance is strongly aromatically cantaloupe-y, chances are you've got a good one.
Honeydew
Honeydews were developed in France, and as with many things French (apologies to my few French acquaintances), are a bit enigmatic to Americans. Commercial honeydew tend to be hard as rocks both inside and outside, so I suspect most grocery store patrons wonder why anyone would like them.
Perhaps unfortunately, patience is required to obtain a good honeydew -- meaning that in most cases, you have to buy one, put it someplace cool and dry for a few weeks to complete the ripening process, and then consume it.
Still, sometimes you can find good ones. Here's what to look for.
Forget the honeydew with the creamy white skin; it'll be a stone inside. Look for one that's trending toward light yellow. If you find such a specimen, give it a gentle squeeze. If it gives slightly and springs back when you back off on the pressure, look around the flower and stem ends for a faint webbing -- faint, mind you, barely there. Examine the melon for bruises or soft spots, and finding none, head for the checkout.
A few years ago, one of my regular honeydew customers was an elderly guy, just about as poor as you can imagine, but rich in his knowledge of honeydew. We always bickered about the price and I (sucker!) nearly everytime dropped my asking for him alone to a couple of cents more than I paid for the melon. I appreciated his pluck and his knowledge of a melon most people don't appreciate at all, not to mention the knowledge he passed along about color and softness and long-term storage (cool,, dry, dark). I haven't seen him for a couple of years, so I hope he's still alive and still buying honeydews.
Crenshaw
Crenshaws (sometimes spelled Cranshaw) are closely related to honeydew, but totally different. They are one of my favorites, uniquely sweet and faintly spice-y in flavor (I think vanilla, but I'm not the last word on this). They exhibit a unique shape, almost flat on the flower end and coming to a well-defined point on the stem end. They range in color from light yellow to yellow but almost orange, with a light orange flesh that can extend right out to the skin with almost no rind at all.
What you are likely to find in the supermarket are Crenshaws that are a little short of fully ripe (they don't ship well when completely ripened), so they are likely to have a skin color in the light yellow range rather than the yellow just short of orange that is, in my opinion, the more desirable color to look for.
A personal note -- I've only seen the orange-ish Crenshaws once in 17 years in the business, and those were considered overripe by the shipper, so they were both inexpensive and totally tasty; that was at a small specialty produce store, so our customers had a special treat for the week and a half we could get them.
Aside from color, what to look for? Crenshaws typically are not as aromatic as cantaloupe, so fragrance doesn't enter the picture, but general appearance and feel -- firm, with even color, no bruising, no obvious soft spots -- is the place to start.
Here's what to be especially vigilant for -- webbing. Crenshaws, like others in the canteloupe family, develop webbing, but the tastiest are likely to exhibit faint webbing, generally confined to the flower and stem ends. I'd be suspicious about a crenshaw with webbing that covered more than about 25 percent of the melon surface or that was more than faintly evident.
Crenshaws tend to be more expensive than honeydews or cantaloupes, and although brands don't matter much in produce, sometimes they do. The Peacock brand is, in my estimation, consistently the best, and this is an unsolicited endorsement. Peacock is usually around in August and September.
Casabas
Casaba melons are in the same grouping as honeydews and crenshaws, but with a strongly lobed bright yellow skin, white-ish to medium green flesh, and a uniquely musky flavor. Not everyone, I have to say, likes the flavor -- it's strong and overwhelms the senses at first bite -- but it can grow on you and is definitely worth a try.
The same general rules of selection apply to casabas as to crenshaws, although crenshaws are, I think, better if they are totally firm. The flower end often opens up more on casabas, creating a circle around a little prominence of yellow flesh that you don't often see on melons. Look for the (faint!) webbing, mostly in this case, around the flower end for the best examples. Again, unsolicited endorsement, I think Peacocks are generally the best available.
Galia
Galia are relatively new to the melon scene. They began to show up (or at least I first noticed them) in the early 90's and were incredibly expensive at first. They've settled into a more competitive price position as time has passed (and greater production was achieved), so if you haven't had one yet, they're definitely worth a look-see-taste-try now.
Galia were developed in Israel sometime during the 70's (according to Wikipedia, and to my understanding of their origins), and seem to combine the flavor characteristics of both muskmelon/canteloupe and honeydews, but sweeter and more succulent than either of these more conventional types. The skin (ripe, of course) is light green to greenish-yellow under a webbing that is perhaps best described as spider-webby, and the flesh is greenish-white near the seed cavity fading to medium green near the skin. Like most melons, the good melons will give slightly under pressure and spring back when released.
Galia rinds are small, so this is a melon you can enjoy almost all the way out to the skin, like a really ripe crenshaw. And galias, perhaps because they're highly hybridized (hybrid vigor, people!), tend to be large. Where cantaloupes and honeydews seldom exceed a pound and three-quarters in weight (about 700 to 750 g or maybe a little more), galias routinely top 2 pounds, and many run to two and a quarter pounds (one kg) each.
'til next time
This by no means an exhaustive list of melons, just the ones I happen to like best. Any questions you may have, I'd be glad to try to answer, and any comments or other tips are warmly welcomed. Watermelons next! Until then, enjoy!
Steve the Green Grocer
Moving past politically charged questions about where the water to grow these luscious products come from, what are melons anyway? And more importantly, how do you, as a buyer, increase your chances of buying a really good one each time you visit the store?
Part the first, all melons, cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon -- all of them -- are basically cucumbers, highly selected and hybridized cukes, falling into different genuses, to be sure, but all, nevertheless, cucurbitaeceae. You can see this sometimes with the long, red seeded watermelons of late summer, which look like nothing more than a giant, bloated cucumber.
CANTALOUPE TYPES
Cantaloupes
I'll get to watermelon in a future post, but for now I'd like to concentrate on the muskmelon types, which include among others such delicacies as Cantaloupes, Crenshaws, Casabas, and Galias, along with one I've never seen or tasted, the Montreal Melon, a muskmelon once popular up and down the East Coast but largely supplanted by more durable varieties some years ago.
So part the second, how can you tell a good one? I wish this was a simple question to answer, particularly with regard to what we call cantaloupe (Europeans have a different melon called cantaloupe), but there are a few fairly reliable tests for tastiness, especially with mid- to late-season California cantaloupes.
First, did the melon slip off the vine? If the stem end shows a depression with no trace of stem remaining, that is a very good sign.
Second, does the melon look right? It should be symmetrical in shape, nicely rounded with even webbing all around (except for perhaps the ground spot) and evenly colored under the webbing. A sort of brownish-beige is just about right. No bruised or soft spots, please: Firm is best.
Third, does the melon give under gentle pressure on the stem or flower end (or both), and then spring back? This is an indication of internal readiness, of flesh that is ready to just melt in your mouth with that unique canteloupe spiciness, ample juice, and a bite that is next to heavenly with its combination of firmness and yielding softness.
Fourth (and last), how does the melon smell? I usually check the stem end for this. If the fragrance is strongly aromatically cantaloupe-y, chances are you've got a good one.
Honeydew
Honeydews were developed in France, and as with many things French (apologies to my few French acquaintances), are a bit enigmatic to Americans. Commercial honeydew tend to be hard as rocks both inside and outside, so I suspect most grocery store patrons wonder why anyone would like them.
Perhaps unfortunately, patience is required to obtain a good honeydew -- meaning that in most cases, you have to buy one, put it someplace cool and dry for a few weeks to complete the ripening process, and then consume it.
Still, sometimes you can find good ones. Here's what to look for.
Forget the honeydew with the creamy white skin; it'll be a stone inside. Look for one that's trending toward light yellow. If you find such a specimen, give it a gentle squeeze. If it gives slightly and springs back when you back off on the pressure, look around the flower and stem ends for a faint webbing -- faint, mind you, barely there. Examine the melon for bruises or soft spots, and finding none, head for the checkout.
A few years ago, one of my regular honeydew customers was an elderly guy, just about as poor as you can imagine, but rich in his knowledge of honeydew. We always bickered about the price and I (sucker!) nearly everytime dropped my asking for him alone to a couple of cents more than I paid for the melon. I appreciated his pluck and his knowledge of a melon most people don't appreciate at all, not to mention the knowledge he passed along about color and softness and long-term storage (cool,, dry, dark). I haven't seen him for a couple of years, so I hope he's still alive and still buying honeydews.
Crenshaw
Crenshaws (sometimes spelled Cranshaw) are closely related to honeydew, but totally different. They are one of my favorites, uniquely sweet and faintly spice-y in flavor (I think vanilla, but I'm not the last word on this). They exhibit a unique shape, almost flat on the flower end and coming to a well-defined point on the stem end. They range in color from light yellow to yellow but almost orange, with a light orange flesh that can extend right out to the skin with almost no rind at all.
What you are likely to find in the supermarket are Crenshaws that are a little short of fully ripe (they don't ship well when completely ripened), so they are likely to have a skin color in the light yellow range rather than the yellow just short of orange that is, in my opinion, the more desirable color to look for.
A personal note -- I've only seen the orange-ish Crenshaws once in 17 years in the business, and those were considered overripe by the shipper, so they were both inexpensive and totally tasty; that was at a small specialty produce store, so our customers had a special treat for the week and a half we could get them.
Aside from color, what to look for? Crenshaws typically are not as aromatic as cantaloupe, so fragrance doesn't enter the picture, but general appearance and feel -- firm, with even color, no bruising, no obvious soft spots -- is the place to start.
Here's what to be especially vigilant for -- webbing. Crenshaws, like others in the canteloupe family, develop webbing, but the tastiest are likely to exhibit faint webbing, generally confined to the flower and stem ends. I'd be suspicious about a crenshaw with webbing that covered more than about 25 percent of the melon surface or that was more than faintly evident.
Crenshaws tend to be more expensive than honeydews or cantaloupes, and although brands don't matter much in produce, sometimes they do. The Peacock brand is, in my estimation, consistently the best, and this is an unsolicited endorsement. Peacock is usually around in August and September.
Casabas
Casaba melons are in the same grouping as honeydews and crenshaws, but with a strongly lobed bright yellow skin, white-ish to medium green flesh, and a uniquely musky flavor. Not everyone, I have to say, likes the flavor -- it's strong and overwhelms the senses at first bite -- but it can grow on you and is definitely worth a try.
The same general rules of selection apply to casabas as to crenshaws, although crenshaws are, I think, better if they are totally firm. The flower end often opens up more on casabas, creating a circle around a little prominence of yellow flesh that you don't often see on melons. Look for the (faint!) webbing, mostly in this case, around the flower end for the best examples. Again, unsolicited endorsement, I think Peacocks are generally the best available.
Galia
Galia are relatively new to the melon scene. They began to show up (or at least I first noticed them) in the early 90's and were incredibly expensive at first. They've settled into a more competitive price position as time has passed (and greater production was achieved), so if you haven't had one yet, they're definitely worth a look-see-taste-try now.
Galia were developed in Israel sometime during the 70's (according to Wikipedia, and to my understanding of their origins), and seem to combine the flavor characteristics of both muskmelon/canteloupe and honeydews, but sweeter and more succulent than either of these more conventional types. The skin (ripe, of course) is light green to greenish-yellow under a webbing that is perhaps best described as spider-webby, and the flesh is greenish-white near the seed cavity fading to medium green near the skin. Like most melons, the good melons will give slightly under pressure and spring back when released.
Galia rinds are small, so this is a melon you can enjoy almost all the way out to the skin, like a really ripe crenshaw. And galias, perhaps because they're highly hybridized (hybrid vigor, people!), tend to be large. Where cantaloupes and honeydews seldom exceed a pound and three-quarters in weight (about 700 to 750 g or maybe a little more), galias routinely top 2 pounds, and many run to two and a quarter pounds (one kg) each.
'til next time
This by no means an exhaustive list of melons, just the ones I happen to like best. Any questions you may have, I'd be glad to try to answer, and any comments or other tips are warmly welcomed. Watermelons next! Until then, enjoy!
Steve the Green Grocer
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