Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Melons
Choosing the right melon is one of the more confusing rites of summer - and you probably
don't know the half of it. Some people say you should thump melons. Some say you should
give them a sniff. Some claim the secret is all in the skin. Some tell you to play with their
bellybuttons (the melons', not the people's). They're all right, and they're all wrong. It all
depends on what kind of melon you're talking about (and, come to think about it, just ex-
actly what you mean by "melon").
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has paid melons more than a passing glance
that they are members of the gourd family, along with squash and cucumbers. Collectively,
these are known as cucurbits. The specific genus that includes melons (well, most melons)
is Cucumis. As you can probably tell by the name, it also includes cucumbers.
Within the Cucumis genus, melons are subdivided into several groups - just how many
depends on whom you're talking to. The first group is called Inodorus (the name literally
means "without smell"), or winter melons, even though they are harvested in the summer,
just like the others. They include large melons such as the casaba and honeydew. They
usually have green flesh, but not always (there are orange-fleshed honeydews, which are
very good, too). Inodorus melons have fairly crisp, slightly grainy flesh and tend to be very
sweet, with a slightly honeyed quality to the flavor.
The second important group is Cantalupensis. These are smaller melons with scaly skin
and usually orange, melting flesh. They tend to have a highly floral, slightly musky flavor.
As you can probably guess, these include cantaloupes. But wait: what you probably think
of as a cantaloupe isn't a cantaloupe at all; it's a muskmelon. A true cantaloupe is a melon
such as the French Charentais or Cavaillon. ("Cantaloupe" is the "Frenchification" of the
Italian Can- talupo, which was the name of the pope's summer estate outside Rome. Sup-
posedly, one of those fifteenth-century "gourmet popes" had the seeds for these brought
from the Near East.) Probably the most common true Cantalupensis melon in the United
States is the Israeli import Ha-Ogen.
In fact, that melon you think of as a cantaloupe might not even be considered part of the
Cantalupensis family - depending on which botanist you ask. Some scientists and growers
recognize a third class of melons called Reticulatus. These differ from Cantalupensis mel-