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CANTALOUPE
I was never a real lover of cantaloupe--until I started growing my own. Cantaloupe is one of those fruits
that really exposes the downfalls of a nationwide food system, kind of like tomatoes. EVERYONE knows that
a grocery store tomato is NOTHING like one that you get from your own garden, right? Well, it's pretty
much the same thing for cantaloupe. In order to be shipped around
the country, cantaloupe must be picked while it's still green (like tomatoes) and must be allowed to ripen in transit. In addition,
when it's ripe it is very tender and "bruisable", which is still further incentive for grocers and large-scale growers to serve up
varieties that remain firm--but also happen to be tastless cardboard. Vine ripened cantaloupe, on the other hand, is like a whole new world of taste
and texture. When properly matured until they fall off the vine into your hand, they become soft, smooth and super sweet. The distinct supermarket cantaloupe taste that I
find so objectionable, matures to a much nicer, more complex and sweeter flavor. Ok, ok, enough with me making a
cantaloupe into some kind of spiritual journey--but they really are good.
No recipes necessary for this one. But I do have one tip on how to eat them. Being the cantaloupe novice that I was, I first tried to eat my cantaloupe like you always see people eat store-bought cantaloupe. You cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, cut it in wedges, seperate the wedge from the rind by running a knife along the rind, and then eat the wedge or cut it into bite sized chunks. Megan, who is always looking for the easier way to do things (I didn't say she's lazy . . . you're just reading in to it too much), realized that after scooping out the seeds, you can take the half of the cantaloupe and just scoop out the inside with a spoon--like people often do with the ends of watermelons. Because the cantaloupe is usually so ripe, creamy and soft, it scoops right out and you end up making much less mess than doing it the other way. Also, the varieties I grow are early maturing varieties for northern gardeners that are quite a bit smaller than those in the store. So eating half a cantaloupe is just a tasty snack rather than an overwhelming amount of fruit. |