ISSUE 42, MELONS, Part 1: The Honeydew
The Honeydew:
The green fleshed winter melon that we have called honeydew since 1915 is responsible for more disappointments and more raptures than any other commercial variety. You, like I, have reveled in the sugary 16 Brix splendor of a ripe prime honeydew; and you, like I, have spooned a green sliver as innocuous and flat tasting as plastic. Because in general the seed quality is as good as any mass cultivated melon grown in the United States, the variability in taste quality stems from how it is grown and how it is harvested. Too many are picked before ripeness and subjected to ethylene gas to make them “store ready.” A shame—for there are few things as sumptuous when chilled that a juicy, meltingly ripe honeydew.
The large egg-shaped white melon became a fixture in the fields around Antibes on the southeast coast of Frances, bearing the name Melon Brode d’Antibes blanc d’Hiver a chair verte. Though in France winter melons did not possess the repute of the sweet summer musk melons, the Melon de Antibes disrupted this prejudice, and proved to keep longer than any orange fleshed netted summer melon. Vilmorin, the great French seed company, did brisk business in the variety in the 1880s. Its first mention in European catalogs dates from 1870. It was an improvement of an old middle eastern landrace. This is an English translation of their catalog copy: “A vigorous, branching, trailing plant, differing from- most of the other varieties by its light gray, much-folded leaf, which makes it appear more deeply lobed than it is. The fruit bluntly oval and dull white, and smooth when ripe. The flesh is green, very sweet and juicy, and very fresh and agreeable in taste. Jt grows best on the Coast of Provence. Gathered fully ripe in October, it keeps perfectly until the month of February, and furnishes a very welcome dessert during winter. In the climate of Paris it is not at its best, nor does it keep well.” (418)
The Melon Brode d’Antibes was widely reported in American agricultural journals at the beginning of the 1890s and was grown out experimentally by the Cornell Experimental Station in the 1893 season, the first extensive planting known in the United States. [Annual Report, 1893, Vol. 6, p 295]. Numbers of horticultural histories incorrectly assert that its American premier took place after the turn of the 20th century, or that John E. Gauger of Colorado was the first extensive grower. No—to each claim, though Gauger is responsible for rebranding the white winter melon as Honeydew, the name it has held since 1915. Indeed Gauger is a textbook case of the kind of grower/huckster whose narcissism is so potent that he/she convinces himself that a variety received from elsewhere was actually his own creation.
Honeydews are primarily cropped in California, Arizona, and Texas. Optimal product size for crop melon is six lbs. Three to four fruit set on each vine, so it is a rewarding melon to grow in one’s yard. It does like a soil Ph of 6 to 6.5, so if one’s fields tend to be acid, a liming two months before planting is recommended. Unlike the musk melon, the honeydew emits not distinctive fragrance—indeed it is the most commercially vital of the inodorous melons. It is also a melon when ripe with sufficient flavor in its juice and pulp to make first rate sorbet, popsicles, and gelato.