Makin's from melons
An enduring, endearing memory from my boyhood is a vision of Grandpa Joe trudging, bent with his burden, up a well-beaten path along the highway as he made his way from the little town of Bryson City homeward to his tiny farm on the banks of the Tuckaseigee River. Slung over his shoulder would be a capacious tow sack containing a whopping Georgia Cannonball watermelon.
Soon enough that round, dark green melon, with a golden bottom where it had rested on the ground prior to harvest, would undergo an hours-long baptism in a big wash tub in which there floated chunks of ice chipped from a large block Grandma Minnie had delivered to keep her aptly named ice box at temperatures appropriate for summertime food preservation. She eventually got a refrigerator but it couldn’t match the simple delights provided by big blocks of ice and wielding an ice pick with a will.
After a few hours in its ice water bath, a time Grandpa and I had likely spent weeding the garden, hoeing row after row of corn, or maybe tending his own melon patch that would yield wonderful bounty later in the summer, it would be time to slice the watermelon. If it was fully ripe, and my grancer had a real knack for selecting perfect melons, the first penetration from his homemade butcher knife featuring a blade that had once been part of a cross-cut saw would see the entire melon split asunder. Thereby revealed would be vivid red flesh glistening with beads of moisture and dotted by black seeds (this was long before the days of those pantywaist pretenders, seedless watermelons, which have been genetically engineered to the point of losing half their taste and all their romance). After all, how can you hold a seed-spitting contest with a seedless melon, how is it possible to save seeds from a particularly fine melon, and how are free-range chickens going to feast on seeds when there are none?
Such thoughts delight and excite me with the arrival of melon season each year. To be sure, thanks to long-range transport and all sorts of genetic manipulation, melons are now available much of the year. For me though, melons mean mid-summer and marvelous memories, and these recipes come directly from those gustatory glories of yesteryear.
Patriotic Melon Medley Seasonal watermelons and honeydews from the Deep South, as opposed to foreign imports, are readily available in grocery bins or shelf displays by the time Independence Day arrives, and locally grown blueberries are also available for purchase or from pick-your-own operations. The trio can be combined for a tasty patriotic offering sure to be a hit at family gatherings or a Fourth of July neighborhood party. Just use a melon ball cutter to extract the delicious meat from the watermelon and honeydew; gently mix in plenty of blueberries; and present in a trifle bowl, some similar clear container, or a portion of hollowed out watermelon. The result is a patriotic red, white, and blue fruit dish that is as tasty as it is eye catching.
TIP: If you have trouble determining when melons are ripe, there are a number of tricks that might help. If it hasn’t been picked, the little tendrils on the vine where it attaches to a melon begin to turn yellow when one is ripe. For melons from the store, thumping is a good approach. You want a dull, hollow sound—sort of a thud—as opposed to a sharper or higher pitched one. Also look at the watermelon’s bottom for yellow, the brighter the yellow the better. In the case of honeydews (and cantaloupe), a stem that has slipped from the melon, as opposed to being cut, is a good sign, and in the case of cantaloupe a slightly musky, appealing smell is another one.
Hillbilly Melon Prosciutto Fancy restaurants or hostesses offering lavish buffets often provide melon balls wrapped in paper thin slices of prosciutto. The meat is simply Italian ham that has been dry cured, and you’ll find that substituting salt- or smoke-cured country ham for the prosciutto works in taste-tempting fashion. After all, I have to reckon that a properly cured country ham from a mountain-raised hog fattened up in fitting fashion prior to hog-killing time in November offers, to draw once from my Grandpa Joe’s bottomless well of culinary wisdom, “about as fine a-eatin’ as a body could ever ask.” The saltiness of the ham blends perfectly with the sweetness of melon, and inasmuch as many high country folks have always liked a sprinkling of salt on their watermelon, the salt-cured ham takes care of that aspect of things.
Using a fillet knife or strong, sharp cheese slicer, cut thin slices of meat from a country ham. They should be so thin that light shines through them. Cut each slice to a size suitable for wrapping around a melon ball (or, alternatively, cut the melon in rectangular chunks). Hold the wrapped meat in place with a toothpick. Rest assured this will be a hit at picnics, family reunions, and the like.
Melon Ball Skewers With Feta Cheese All types of the most commonly available melons—watermelons, honeydews, cantaloupes, and muskmelons—have sufficiently firm flesh to be affixed to a skewer. For a delightful chilled treat as a cocktail party appetizer or side salad as part of a summer buffet, affix balls or chunks of melon to the same type of wooden skewers used to grill meat. Place them flat on a serving platter and top liberally with finely crumbled feta cheese. The melon will have enough moisture on its surface to help the feta adhere. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.
Watermelon Ice Cubes Over 90 percent of the flesh of a watermelon is, as the name suggests, water. The moisture-laden nature of this summertime delight is abundantly obvious to anyone who has ever savored a slice while juice dripped, almost uncontrolled, down your chin. In my marvelously misspent youth that feature of watermelon was precisely why it was eaten on the porch or somewhere outside. Often consumption involved removal of a lad’s t-shirt and the aftermath would be a bulging belly full of melon on the inside and adorned with sticky red juice on the outside. We never thought of it then, but it’s a shame to have all the goodness left when a watermelon half that has been rendered into balls or cut into chunks go to waste. Drain the watermelon “water” or use a small ladle and put it into an old-fashioned ice cube tray. Freeze until solid. The resulting melon cubes make a tasty, colorful addition to lemonade or a variety of cocktails using bourbon or rum. Also, for someone who was raised in a world where “waste not, want not” was an adage of deep meaning, “saving” the juice offers some quiet inner satisfaction.
Makin's from melons
Watermelon Rind Pickles Speaking of the cardinal sin of “waste,” as a rule during my youth, watermelon rinds were never discarded or thrown in a “made” part of the garden to rot. They either went to the hogs or chickens. Both loved the leftovers from a grand session of watermelon cutting and eating. However, at least a couple of times each summer, usually when Grandpa had brought home a particularly fine melon or, during the sweltering depths of Dog Days, harvested one he had grown in the sandy soil portion of his little riverside farm, Grandma would make it known that the rinds were to be saved for her. The instructions she offered on such matters were obeyed unequivocally, because to do otherwise was sure to invoke her wrath. That temper was something to behold. In her later years she wouldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she had a tongue that could flay the hide off a 300-pound hog. Her word was law, and that translated to rinds being saved. While most watermelon rind pickle recipes call for cutting away the outer peeling and removing any red flesh next to the rind, Grandma Minnie left the rind intact as well as a bit of the melon next to the rind. That produced a visually appealing pickle blending the green melon surface, the white of the rind, and the red of the flesh.
BRINE
- 4 tablespoons salt
- 1 quart water
INGREDIENT
- Watermelon rinds
PICKLE SYRUP
- 8 cups sugar
- 4 cups vinegar
- 8 teaspoons whole cloves
- 12 cinnamon sticks
- Pinch of mustard seed (optional)
Cut the watermelon rind into one-inch cubes and allow to soak in the brine overnight. The following morning drain off the liquid, add fresh water, and cook the rinds in a large pot until tender.Then prepare the pickle syrup, boiling the mixture and then allow to sit for 15 minutes. Add drained watermelon rind (use a plastic colander to drain) and cook until the cubes become somewhat transparent. Process in sterilized jars. Properly done, this sweet pickle will be crunchy, tasty, and appealing to the eye.
Watermelon Smoothies The flavor of watermelon is ideal for a refreshing smoothie; unfortunately, in its natural state the flesh isn’t. If you try making a smoothie using fresh watermelon you’ll get a mushy, slushy mess. The blending process just turns everything to water rather than the cold, delicious, and nicely textured liquid you expect in a smoothie. Fortunately there’s a simple fix. Just freeze watermelon chunks or cubes solid and turn them immediately into a smoothie when they come from the freezer. There are several steps you can take that will, in my opinion, make for an even tastier treat with ideal texture. One involves adding some sliced strawberries and plain Greek yogurt to the frozen watermelon before blending it to liquid perfection. You might also want to consider banana, although the flavor and aroma of banana, while partnering nicely with watermelon, does dominate the end result. Whatever approach you take, this is a grand way to turn leftover watermelon from a feast into a breakfast treat.
Makin's from melons
Queen Anne Pocket Melons I don’t think I have ever, in any type of “recipe” coverage, included mention of something that isn’t particularly appealing when it comes to edibility. Yet I want to do that now with coverage of the Queen Anne pocket melon or, as it is more commonly known in the high country, the “plum granny.” The flesh, while aromatic, is basically tasteless. Yet these tiny melons, which are about the size and shape of maypops (passion flower fruit), are such a treat to the sense of smell that they merit mention. These were once, in the days before indoor plumbing and ease of bathing or showering, often grown and used by women as a sort of ersatz deodorant. In that regard plum grannies served the same purpose the flowers of sweet shrub or “bubbies” did in the spring (the name bubbies came from the common practice of nestling a couple of sweet shrub blooms in a woman’s bosom; i. e., between her “boobies”). Pocket melons were often carried in an apron pocket, hence the nickname. From mid-summer until fall the hearty vines produce melons in abundant fashion and a single one can fill a whole room with their fragrance. They may not be much when it comes to actual eating but the smell is enough to send one’s salivary glands running amok.
About the author: Jim Casada has written widely on nature, the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and the Appalachians for decades. His works include a number of cookbooks, mostly done in tandem with his late wife, Ann. His latest work in this field is Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food: Recipes & Stories from Mountain Kitchens, co-authored with Tipper Pressley. It is available through standard on-line sources and signed copies are available from Casada through his website, jimcasadaoutdoors.com.