Melon mania - melon varities - includes recipes

Sunset, August, 1995 by Elaine Johnson

Tired of your everyday cantaloupe? Here's how to shop for and cook with some of the more exotic melons in the marketplace.

At 9 A.M. on a blazing Saturday at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza farmers' market, the sun is already turning noses red. Shoppers linger beneath canvas umbrellas, avoiding the glare between stands. It's going to be a thirsty day, the kind melons are made for.

Customers at Nick Atallah's stand eagerly sample a juicy green-striped melon with deep orange flesh. It looks beautiful enough to be in a still-life painting. Some mistake it for cantaloupe, but not many cantaloupes achieve such a heady aroma and sweetly musky taste.

"This is French Charentais," Atallah explains. "The French are devils for flavor." He has Asian melons, too - Emerald Jewel and Sprite. Their chartreuse flesh is crisper and candy sweet, with less complex flavors.

Around the corner, grower Dave Fredericks likens the smooth texture and flavor of a Sharlyn melon to vanilla Haagen-Dazs. Then he exhorts passersby to try a melon claimed to be an aphrodisiac in Persia. Kharboozeh mashedi, he calls it, slicing into the squiggly striped, torpedo-shaped fruit. "That rhymes with 'hard to say, my cherie.'"

The growing crowd is intrigued, if skeptical. The melon is crisp like an Asian pear, with an intensely sweet floral taste. The juice practically pours out. Whether or not this exotic specimen awakens appetites of another nature, it couldn't be more satisfying to an overheated shopper.

At farmers' markets and specialty stores throughout the West, getting passionate about melons is especially easy to do this month. Hot days and nights produce the most flavorful examples of the season.

And we have more melons than ever to enjoy. They hail from close by and as far away as Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some are new hybrids developed for qualities such as sweetness. Many are old varieties that backyard seed savers and immigrants have recently introduced to farmers.

It's small-scale growers like Atallah and Fredericks, selling at farmers' markets, who make enjoying these melons possible. Most varieties wouldn't survive mass production. Some need coddling as they grow, and require expertise to pick ripe. Often fruit is too fragile to ship. It has taken farmers' markets' adventurous clientele to appreciate the unusual melons and pay their higher prices.

We found nine melons that are most readily available, but keep your eyes open for others, particularly if you live in the hot, dry climates that melons love best.

To get a good melon, you have to know what to look for (see descriptions that follow). Some will soften a little after picking, but none will develop more flavor. In general, avoid melons with dents or bruises, and those that indicate overripeness with a lot of give, sloshing seeds, or a fermented scent. Hard-rind melons keep longer than soft-rind ones (some of these last only a day or two). Chill melons if storing them longer than a day, and wait to remove seeds until just before using, as they help keep the melon moist.

Ambrosia. This extra-sweet cantaloupe hybrid has fine netting (the mesh pattern on the rind), fairly soft flesh, and a mildly floral, musky fragrance. A ripe melon has raised netting on a creamy background color, and its blossom end yields to gentle pressure.

Ananas and Sharlyn. These melons are tough to tell apart. Both taste exceptionally sweet and perfumed. A true Ananas has a chewier texture and multicolored flesh (pale orange to cream and pale green). Sharlyn's uniform cream-color flesh nearly dissolves in the mouth. When fruits are ripe, rinds of both melons begin to turn orange.

Charentais. Also sold by variety names such as Alienor, Charmel, and Savor, Charentais is very sweet and aromatic, with firm, juicy flesh. When fruit is ripe, the gray background under the green vertical stripes begins to turn cream. Look for a clean, fresh perfume and a blossom end that yields to gentle pressure.

Galia. This finely netted melon is very juicy and sweet, with an intense floral nose and succulent flesh. When fruit is ripe, the rind has a light green to gold background color.

Ha-Ogen. The intoxicating perfume is what people first notice about green-striped Ha-Ogen. Flesh is velvety, sweet,and tropical-tasting, though lacking acidic balance. Ripe melons have a mottled green-orange background (sometimes with a sparse net). The almost skinlike rind bruises easily.

Juan Canary. Its flavor is medium sweet, mildly tropical, and musky. Flesh of ripe fruit is soft and juicy. The smooth, hard rind has little aroma; to determine ripeness, look for deep yellow color and a bit of give at the blossom end.

Persian. These melons need a lot of heat to ripen; most are picked too green. A nice melon has some yellow background color beneath the fine netting. Also, check for a bit of give at the blossom end. The flesh is firm and slightly musky.

Santa Claus. Christmas is another name for this green- and yellow-striped melon with a smooth, hard rind. The flesh is soft and juicy, fairly sweet, and a bit bland. The brighter the yellow stripes, the riper the melon.