The melons are endless. New types pour into the grocery stores and overwhelm the Fruit Explorer. I won't attempt to cover them all, but I will taste a few more. This e-mail covers the Korean melon and the Hami melon, which I bought at H Mart on 23 Jun 2015.
These two melons are among the many cultivars of the muskmelon (Cucumis melo). Muskmelon cultivars include those whose surfaces are smooth (honeydew and casaba (7 Sep 2014)) and reticulated (cantaloupe and Christmas melon (25 Aug 2014)). ("Reticulated" means net-like and is from the Latin "rete," which means net. You have seen this root in other contexts, e.g., reticule, which is a woman's small net bag,reticulated python, and retiarius. which is a Roman gladiator armed like a fisherman with a net and trident. Go to this site to buy a retiarius action figure.) The muskmelon is compared to wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea, see the table in the e-mail of 12 Jun 2015) in that both species have given rise to a large number of cultivars. This plasticity is one of the reasons why there are so many melons. The muskmelon is native to Iran, Turkey, and Armenia, but, despite the many cultivars, the muskmelon has not been found in the wild.
To learn more about melon classification and melon terminology, try this site, which also has a good survey of the various melons.
Korean Melon
The Korean melon (no PLU sticker) is notable because it is small and has a bright yellow pattern that makes it stand out even in a grocery aisle teeming with eye-catching fruit. Mine weighed 1.08 pounds, so at $1.99 per pound, which is high for a melon, it set me back $2.08. As the pictures show, the Korean melon is smooth-skinned. Here are pictures from the Internet.
- This melon is football-shaped and yellow with longitudinal white stripes.
- A pile of Korean melons that shows a cross-section of the seeds in the middle.
- A bin full of Korean melons.
Here are pictures of my Korean melon.
- The whole melon in its resplendent glory. This is a melon for an artist to include in a still life.
- The melon cut into halves. I elected to cut it lengthwise. You can see that the seeds are gathered in the middle and comprise a good fraction of the volume of this melon.
- The melon cut into quarters and showing the seeds. It is said that this melon can be eaten whole--seeds, rind, and all--but I didn't try it.
- The quarters with the seeds pared out. I had to use a knife to do this, and it took some care.
- The profile of a quarter to show how thin the rind is.
- The profile of a quarter to show what it looks like after I have eaten it.
I decided not to cut the rind off, as I do with a cantaloupe, since the rind was thin and tough. Instead, I elected to eat my way down to the rind. I took my first bite and found that this melon was crunchy, almost like a carrot. Its taste was totally bland. No taste at all, and no juiciness. I found it easy to gnaw so that only the rind was left. This melon was totally unsatisfying. I only ate one quarter; I'll see if I can get my neighbors Rob and Julee to take the rest. I will represent it as the overflow from the Fruit Explorer's horn of plenty. I rescued my lunch by eating a large navel orange.
The verdict: I have been seeing Korean melons at H Mart for many months, and I don't know when the season is. My unhappy experience leads me to speculate that my Korean melon was not ripe. I don't know what rule of thumb to use to tell when it is ripe. Until I find a way to tell when this melon is ripe, I am going to avoid this expensive little visual delight.
Here are pictures of the Korean melon in the field.
- The flower of a cultivar that is closely related to the Korean melon.
- Ripe Korean melons on the vine.
- Close-up of ripe Korean melons on the vine.
There is a small amount of Korean melon art.
- Decorated Korean melon halves.
- A bunny made of fruits and vegetables, with a cantaloupe(?) body and a Korean melon head.
[Continued in Part 2]
