In the movie When Harry Met Sally, there are several interlude interviews with older couples, who describe how they first met and fell in love. This is one:
Woman: He was a head counselor at the boys’ camp, and I was a head counselor at the girls’ camp. And they had a social one night. And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine — because people were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine — but he was coming to talk to me. And he said…
Man: I’m Ben Small of the Coney Island Smalls.
Woman: At that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.
Now, I don’t doubt she had a definitive feeling about Ben Small, but she’s also that certain when she’s found a good melon?
It’s hard picking out a melon, but boy do we like to try. We sniff, rub, poke, squeeze, shake and thump, all in the hopes of finding the perfect fruit that will yield sweet, lean-over-the-sink-juicy, flesh. Everyone has his/her own methods, and I’m no exception.
Cantaloupe
This one’s pretty straightforward: I pick a cantaloupe that’s firm and looks full and unblemished, plop it on the counter and let it be. After a few days I press the ends of the melon — if they give and yield to pressure, then I think the cantaloupe’s ripe and ready to be eaten. Save for the occasional mealy cantaloupe, this method has delivered solid results.
*The host of this Livestrong video says you should also look for a yellow color on the rind, which indicates ripeness, and do a sniff test. Makes sense.
Honeydew
Also fairly straightforward. Again, I look for an unblemished, smooth skin and set the honeydew on the counter. After a few days the skin begins to feel “tacky” to the touch (a tip I read in a magazine somewhere). That’s when I know it’s ripe.
On occasion, I’ve picked up the dud that never became tacky — it stayed as smooth as the day I bought it. Not sure why that happened, but it was a clear indication that the flesh inside was not going to be sweet. Always a bummer.
Watermelon
In my opinion, the trickiest of the bunch. As far as I know, watermelons don’t continue to ripen after picking, so either you’re stuck with a good one or a bad one. To select a watermelon, I do the thump test to see if it sounds dense. I also pick it up — if it feels especially heavy, then I assume it has a lot of water content and is ripe. This is based on nothing scientific; in fact, I’m not sure why I started doing this in the first place.
** Here’s a tip from Cooking Light: Look for a pale yellow patch, indicating where the watermelon sat on the ground while ripening on the vine.
For this particular watermelon, I thumped it, hefted it, and when it met with my approval, I took it home.
Whew — it was a very decent one. Juicy, firm, and with a nice red color. Sometimes you just luck out.
What are your melon tips and tricks? Care to share them?
3 Comments
I agree about the cantaloupe ripening on the counter, but this has never worked for me with honeydews. With the latter, I follow a tip that I read about a while ago: look for a melon with a velvety feel – like a baby’s bottom – and a little give.
It works!
This is a great post! I do not know much about melons so I go by instinct.
From my dad’s friend, an expert on watermelons:
Big & weighty is better than small & light; this indicates that it’s juicy.
Tap with your hand or knock with the back of your fingers; it is not necessary to lift the watermelon if it’s too heavy. A good watermelon should sound solid and vibrates. You should feel the vibration transferred to the other side if you put another hand on the opposite side.
If it sounds hollow, do not choose it; this may indicate that it’s rotten, although that rarely happens. If it sounds solid but you don’t feel the vibration, the peel may be too thick and this one may not be ripe enough. When it sounds solid and vibrates, it usually means that it is juicy, ripe, and thin skinned. However, that does not always mean it is sweet. By this method, roughly 80% of such watermelons in a good store should be sweet.
The peel should look smooth and shiny, instead of dull. It should include clear stripes and some marks that look like little scars, as long as they are not too deep and do not reach through the skin.