Like the scent of honeysuckle alongside the facet of fence, the candy musky aroma of cantaloupe is a odor of summer time. It’s a perfume I by no means tire of.
One summer time, our household traveled to Italy to spend every week in a Tuscan villa in celebration of my important birthday. We ate, walked, ate some extra, walked some extra, and visited each market in website. I cried once we left all that ripe cantaloupe behind.
Which sounds unusual, I do know, since you may assume I didn’t respect the pasta or the pizza, the wine or gelato, which I did. You may assume I didn’t style native prosciutto, which I did, particularly when wrapped round melon.
The One Summer Craving I’ll Never Outgrow
To me, melons, and cantaloupe particularly, embody summer time. They are part of my summer time childhood watching my mom scoop the tender orange flesh into rounds and pile them right into a basket she’d carved from a fats crimson watermelon.
She saved a gentle provide of cantaloupes ripening on the kitchen counter. When she’d slice into one, take a fast pattern with a spoon, she’d smile ear to ear, and we knew it was candy and ripe.
Back in these days, many of the cantaloupe was ripe and candy. It didn’t come into the markets too early and wasn’t grown in locations so distant that it needed to be trucked in earlier than it was able to eat.
Today, it’s not really easy to search out the proper cantaloupe. But I’ve grown to belief the Athena melons, and every summer time we await their arrival someday in early July.
I tried to develop melons after consuming them small and intensely flavored that summer time in Tuscany. The first try was not profitable, so the following spring I devoted a greater backyard spot with extra solar and water.
The outcomes had been profitable, however three or 4 cantaloupes for all that work didn’t appear sufficient to quench my cantaloupe cravings. We purchased extra melons from the native farmer.
Caitlin Bensel; Food Stylist: Torie Cox
How To Pick A Good Cantaloupe
Whether you purchase or develop your personal cantaloupe, the best way to identify a great one is simply to odor it. Bring it near your face in sniffing distance, and it ought to odor candy and musky. Lots of people press on the stem finish to see if there’s a little bit give which implies it’s ripe, however too many individuals urgent doesn’t seem to be good melon stewardship to me.
When I get the cantaloupe in my kitchen, I rinse the surface properly in heat water, and dry it off earlier than slicing in half. I scoop out the seeds with a soup spoon, and slice every half once more into quarters. Getting fancy, I trim the extra slender slices of rind and wrap them in prosciutto.
My favourite are the melon balls to pop one after the other into my mouth or high a summer time salad. They’re undoubtedly nostalgic. My granddaughter loves them, too. And I’ve nonetheless obtained my mom’s melon baller within the kitchen drawer to tug into motion.
Cantaloupe cravings are one thing I’ve realized to handle and respect, too.
