The third time’s the charm, right? Well, my third watermelon of the 2024 fresh produce season was yet another “meh” melon. The first melon was a complete dud – bland and tasteless. I put that down to impatience on my part. It was mid-May, way too early for a spectacular high summer watermelon even if it was shipped in from Ecuador. Is it even summer in Ecuador? My lousy research assistant, Chat GPT, says not really. “Ecuador has two seasons: dry and wet, which are differentiated by rainfall distribution.”

What the heck is that? Sorta Summer followed by Wannabe Winter?

The second watermelon, I purchased from Costco in the first week of June. More of the same. Mealy and dull. It ended up in the compost bin.

Now the third one was close. It was a deep emerald seedless globe. As soon as I got home, I split it in half with a quick samurai slash. (I was in the middle of watching “Shogun” on Hulu. It’s amazing.) But the flesh was a little pale and so was the flavor. Not horrible, but definitely not great. It wasn’t sweet enough.

I ended up eating half of it anyway. I wrapped up the second half tightly in plastic wrap and put it into my storage fridge and forgot all about it. Four days later, while foraging leftovers for lunch, I pulled it out. The flesh looked darker and richer. And when I tasted it, it was just about perfect. Watermelon isn’t supposed to be one of those fruits that continues ripening after being picked. The technical term is climacteric fruit, which includes bananas, tomatoes, pears, mangoes, peaches, apples and avocados.

I can’t really explain what happened, but this melon got noticeably sweeter after it was cut and spent some time in the refrigerator. If the botanists and food scientists are correct, maybe it didn’t actually “ripen” in the fridge. Perhaps cutting into it and exposing the edible flesh to the air allowed it to “breathe,” and the chilling hours allowed it to “mature.” Don’t laugh; we use these passive methods on everything from wine to meatloaf to improve and deepen flavors.

There’s a graphic that’s been floating around the Internet for years entitled “How to Pick a Perfect Watermelon.” I used it as a guide for a couple years before I realized that it was far from foolproof.

Uniform Size & Heavy: Uniform size? Compared to what? Every other melon in the cardboard playpen at the supermarket or every other melon on the truck? Does this mean I shouldn’t pick out the Buick Regal-sized watermelon if I’m going to a picnic? And Heavy? Do I really need to pick up every single watermelon and compare the relative weight-to-size ratio? Have you ever picked up a watermelon and said to yourself, “Oh, this must be the runt of the litter”?

Elongated: There are three typical sizes of watermelons: Picnic (the long big-boys), Cannonball or Icebox (globe shaped and at least 8“ in diameter) and the Personal/Mini (globe shaped and under 7” in diameter). If you’re poring through a display of Icebox melons and you spot one that looks elongated, it means it has been overwatered and, thusly, the overall flavor will be diluted.

Orange vs. White Field Spot: The field spot is the part of the melon that sits on the ground and gets no sunlight. The butt of the melon, if you will. A field spot that is very white is supposed to indicate that the melon was picked too soon. When the melon is fully ripened, the field spot should be a yellowish to creamy orange color. Supposedly.

Larger Webbing vs. Smaller Webbing: What is webbing? It’s the patterns of stretch mark-like scars on the skin caused by bees. Most of the references on the net say the scars are from the bees pollinating the melons. Think about that for a hot second. Bees pollinate flowers ... ya, know, the birds and the BEES, mommy and daddy dance, circle of life, hakuna matata yadda yadda yadda? Bees don’t pollinate fruit, they eat it. The webbing is just healed over bee bites. Conventional wisdom says that if your watermelon has lots of webbing, then bees (and ants) were attracted to it because it was ripe and sugary.

Dark & Dull vs. Shiny: Dark green means lots of nutrients and photosynthesis happening inside. What the graphic doesn’t tell you is that full sunlight is the largest determining factor for generating sugars in the flesh of a melon. A dull sheen to the skin means that the melon has received adequate water and is in the ripe stage.

As far as I can tell, that graphic is about as reliable as the weather predictions of the Farmer’s Almanac. Which is to say, it’s a layer cake of common sense and nonsense. To test my anti-theory, I trucked over to Walmart last night and picked out the palest, least scarred, no butt watermelon I could find. Cut it in half and sliced off a small piece to check the sweetness; about an 8 out of 10. I cut one half into chunks and put it into a bowl in the fridge and wrapped the other half placed into the storage fridge for a four day rest.

Today at lunchtime, I popped open the bowl and tested the cut melon again. The pieces were a bit darker and it was definitely sweeter, even after 16 hours. There was at least a cup of the juice in the bottom of the bowl and I alternately tasted the juice and the melon. The melon was at least twice as sweet as the juice. So maybe the draining off some of the water concentrates the actual flavor and sweetness of the melon? Just a thought. If you test this out for yourself, let me know at the email address below or stop by the Waterford Farmers Market this season and we’ll compare notes.

Rich Swanson is a local cook who has had numerous wins in nationally sponsored recipe contests. He is also the layout specialist here at The Day.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Rich Swanson can be reached at TheSurlyTable@gmail.com.