Or ‘toad skin’ melon – my latest food passion!
Remember way back in March when I solved my fruit dilemma by making fresh fruit purées? Well, that all went by the wayside when I went into hospital in May and somehow I never got back into the habit. Then the other evening I was out for a walk with Nog and I was so hot and tired and wishing I could have an icy cold granizada de limón … and suddenly I thought of melons. Lovely crisp and juicy piel de sapo melons. And so I told Nog that we had to get to a supermarket immediately.
And I was right. It wasn’t cold but it totally quenched my thirst and tasted so fresh and delicious … and well, I’ve been eating melon daily ever since. The trick is to find one that is perfectly ripe and, since I have no idea how to do this, I ask someone at the fruit stand. Personally I don’t think they know either but they’re quite good at looking like they do.
Am thinking melon would also go well in a frozen vodka drink …
casa azahar 
Hola cariño,
I feel contenta reading you again( no internet where I have been) It is refreshing reading your smiling words.
Piel de sapo . It is an oxymoron. It’s delicious.
Last night I was eating a slice . You know the flavour varies slightly from one melon to another, that one reminded me a kind of subtle pineapple taste.
That mix with vodka sounds good. You can have it also as granizada . I have seen it bottled, like another juice.
Un abrazo, preciosa
Mar
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Mmm. That melon looks positively delicious. I’m sure that partly the reason that it quenches your thirst so well is that melons are chock full of potassium, an electrolyte that is essential to us. Quite often when we are thirsty we are craving electrolytes. I’m quite sure that your electrolyte balances are totally screwed up by chemotherapy and the things that go along with it.
Isn’t it wonderful that something that is so very good for us is also so delicious!
The best way to tell if a melon is ripe is to wait until the box turtles start eating on the end of it. That will indicate that it is at its optimum ripeness. Lacking a box turtle, you can thump the melon with your finger and listen for a nice hollow thump. I also take a good solid sniff of the bud end of the melon. A ripe melon will smell strongly of — ripe melon.
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Hola Mar, corazón de melón! How great to hear from you again. Are you back home now after holidays? I’ll send you an email soon.
My latest melon is a bit overripe so I might have to freeze chunks of it to use in a fruit slushy thing later on.
I don’t happen to have a box turtle, hmh, and I rather suspect all that thumping and sniffing and hefting is just for show. And isn’t sniffing only for cantaloupes? Anyhow, getting the perfectly ripe melon seems quite hit and miss to me. But overripe is preferable to underripe, that’s for sure.
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I don’t like melons…. Never really have.
BTW. You should scrub them really well with soap and water before cutting them, especially cantaloupes. There have been many cases of Salmonella from eating melons which have been in contact with Salmonella bacteria, usually from water used during the growing process.
The bacteria (not just Salmonella) transfers from the rind to the flesh during cutting.
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And, no, the thumping isn’t for show., though the method for determining ripeness depends on the melon.
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/cornucop/2002071935010165.html
The above concentrates on harvesting but there should be enough to give you an idea.
Here I live the Cook’s Thesaurus. This is the page for melons:
http://www.foodsubs.com/Fruitmel.html
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That’s good advice about washing melons well first, Anneke. I just rinsed mine off but will be sure to give them a good scrub with soap and water in future.
Nog doesn’t like melon either, so I have to eat the whole thing myself.
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I unfortunately can’t eat any kind of melon without it feeling like the inside of my ear itches like crazy. I think you get hives in your eustachion tubes. But I used to love them. Damn. Maybe it will change someday. Bananas used to do it when I was a kid, but I can eat them now. Only I usually let them get overripe and then make banana bread out of them.
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I first read that last line as “a thinking melon” – – –
Perhaps it is a sign of my current scatterbrainedness. I also am not a lover of melons. I did enjoy them in my youth (now there is a visual the nurse could play with) but now I find them heartburnish.
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I think that the sniff test works for all melons with a porous rind, actually. It doesn’t work that well on watermelons, there you definitely thump. I can’t tell from the picture whether this melon has a hard shiny rind or not.
I’m lucky. My melons come from my garden where I am absolutely positive they are not getting exposed to salmonella.
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I have usually gone with the lines being less defined for watermelong, though I rarely eat watermelong. I DEFINITELY don’t like it over-ripe.
As with most of my food-related phobias, and I have a few, despite my willingness to try almost anything, stems from a bad experience… or, in this case, series of experiences.
My Dad used to buy watermelong during the summer but never get around to cutting it until it was well past it’s ripeness. Inevitably, he would get to it about the time it was slopping about in the shell. Then he would decide it wasn’t good for eating and make watermelong juice…
Imagine watermelon-flavoured sand.
I can’t even think of watermelong without thinking of the gross texture of that. AND we HAD to drink it….
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That would be watermelon…
My fingers have this bizarre habit of adding a “g” whenever a word ends in “on”….
Gordon ends up being very Freudian…
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See! I did it every single time!… and the “g” is a completely unconscious addition!
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Heartburn and allergies seem strange reactions to such a mild tasting fruit.
I reckon your melons are also much better because they get to ripen on the vine, hmh. I saw some toad skin melons cut open at the supermarket today (they were selling them in halves) and they were totally unripe. Ick.
“Imagine watermelon-flavoured sand.”
Watermelon (or watermelong) is the only type of melon I don’t like. It’s got an awful texture and there are all those damn seeds. I love how it smells but can’t stand eating it.
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I have recently taken to just picking up the melon, tapping it and listening.
If it sounds sharp and taunt, it turns out to be less ripe.
If it had a dull thud and no sharpness, it has turned out to be sweet.
It does seem to work for me.
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I have recently taken to just picking up the melon, tapping it and listening.
If it sounds sharp and taunt, it turns out to be less ripe.
If it had a dull thud and no sharpness, it has turned out to be sweet.
It does seem to work for me.
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