Summer is watermelon season, and just as there’s nothing like biting into a perfectly juicy, sweet slice, there’s no disappointment like finding it tasteless and mushy. Unlike many other types of fruit, watermelon will not ripen any further once it’s harvested. It also doesn’t readily announce its ripeness; the outside doesn’t turn soft like a peach and it doesn’t emit a sweet scent like a cantaloupe. So how do you pick a ripe watermelon at the store?
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My old man used to have the seller "plug" the melon, cut a triangular plug , to see if it was ripe.
ReplyDelete98% of the watermelon around me is the bland tasteless mushy seedless shit. Never buy it. Early this summer on a regular grocery run, I spied a display of "real" seeded 'melons, and bought one. Wish I had bought two. Damned thing was outrageously good tasting.
ReplyDeleteWhen they bred the seeds out, they also bred the taste out.
DeleteI had this conversation with a produce grower every year. People are just too lazy to spit the seeds out.
"Or you can just ask a black dude to pick one out for you"
ReplyDeleteTTTHHHAAASSS RRRAAACCCIIISSS and liable to get you killed.
Nemo
I was raised on a farm. I was taught the "thumping" method to test for ripeness. Early in our marriage my wife thought I was nuts thumping melons until she realized I always picked out a ripe melon or would pass on the lot.
ReplyDeleteMy parents did the thump test. On cantaloupes, too. Sniff test also works on cantaloupes. If you can smell cantaloupe, it's good. Surprisingly, here in Florida grocery store watermelons and cantaloupes don't have any taste at all.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that the best tasting stuff always gets shipped out of state.
DeleteI still remember the day my Texas grandparents showed up in southern Montana with five big watermelons. Gotta be almost 60 years. I'm not sure why growers today bred all the taste out when they got rid of the seeds. Idiots. BTW my father was a presser not a thumper. Stealing watermelons from the fields taught him well because he never got a bad one.
ReplyDeleteBecause today's melons, all fruit really, is grown for longevity of storage and endure shipping. A guy told me the watermelon that Walmart sells were picked from the field two months ago.
DeleteMy family were "thumpers". Always worked too.
ReplyDeleteMy dad did the plug test, worked for him so I continue the tradition.
ReplyDeleteWe often get growers out of Mississippi selling out of trucks and trailers on the roadside here, they pretty much automatically plug any melon you're considering.
Had a tiger stripe variety last week, damn it was good, wish I had bought 2.
JD