My snobbery when it comes to tea is hosted upon these pages and I'm moved to inflict upon the grocery shopper of America a new snobbery, and no it is not broccoli, even if real broccoli is supposed to have the taste of garden fresh peas, and not that fodder smell one finds that George H.W. Bush detested.
Today we speak of the melon, in all it's vixen voluptuous volumes of lustful bounty spilling out of the garden blouse upon the bosom of the world.
One of the greatest crimes in this world is that unripe frankenfood fair which the public is saddled with in thinking fruit is supposed to be horrid like that. Fruit is to be none of that, nor is it to be sugar enhanced genes which really ruin the purpose of the fruit.
This evening my garden produced one of my little gems from France in the Petite Gres du Rennes melon, or the Little Grey melon from Rennes, France. It is a robust little creature which thrives in my nativity of which I'm flattered as there are some melons which just will not produce in some areas while in other areas they are bountiful.........and then comes the frown in, the incorrect nutrients, heat, moisture and only wine knows what, produces this thing which tastes like it came from a store, only softer instead of hard as a rock.
I like this Rennes melon as it is early compared to the Noir de Carmes or black melon, and it still will be lovely in flavor.
There is just something about French melons that taste different in the cantaloupe and muskmelon classes, as while American muskmelons have this musky, strong, burn my throat acidity, the French melons are always soft in bloom upon the palate and behave so wonderfully in the body. They truly are Jeanette du Arc and Lafayette upon the shores of the Anglo Saxon caressing the land with all the nurturing love they had for the race.
Petite is not really grey at all, but more a dark green for most of it's life, and then it takes on greyish little freckles before it bounces into perfection of a slight yellowish hue at which point it must be pounded upon like a wildebeest in a lion kill, as she will not wait lying about the counter or cooler.
Even in a strong wind, as I carried my treasure to my home, I could smell this fruit. It was citrus scented........beautifully orange in nature, and when it offers itself up, it will be cool, sweet, a slight musk, and cleansing to the tongue in which you will desire more and more.
Yes Petite is nothing like her buxom cousin the Charentais, that vixen of enticement, longer in season, but when the Lord made Charentais, he was apparently out in the Indian jungle as this melon has a slight pine flavor to her, much like the mango is a peach scented pine flavor.
You can not see me of course, but as I type this in my flashing fingers to the keyboard I'm off staring into the distance thinking fondly of my first Charentais like it was yesterday.
Thank God I do not have to travel to France for them as they are much better when grown by me.......yes tis bias.
That is the interest in melons in I can not grow Minnesota melons like the infamous Midget, which seems to grow even in a stick pile like Montana, but not in my lush tropical location here. Muskmelons from America even loose a great deal of their ambiance in my location in being quite Obama bland.
Is perplexing as I will to love them, but they will not love me back. The netted gems like the little green melons of the Nutmeg can be most unpleasant too in liking northern tier growing conditions and when put into Illinois or Iowa they just droop and are nothing special.
I recall my first honeydew in a white fleshed with yellow blush marvel. It was pure torture in it was so sweet it was like eating spoons of sugar......hence the real way a honeydew should taste.
I love winter melons or Christmas melons as they keep for quite some time, and are beautiful crisp things with whitish flesh. In that, my snobbery is for Collective Farm Woman, which is not pretty at all, but this Soviet invention from the Krim area is something which loves me abundantly.
She will take abuse and neglect and do quite well, and produces at times yellow melons and often more green melons with yellow freckles in her many dimples.
My fondness of CFW was due to my first try I was blessed with 16 melons, which is far too many melons for me, and I ate them, and left them sit on my lawn for 6 weeks in rain and sun, and they just acted like they were in the cooler.
Melons do not like over watering in they will explode often, and you will not like them as they will be bland. Any farmer will tell you, it is up to God in how melons turn out, as it is special in melons in they need deep water, the right soil and quite high dry heat to produce a flavor that the first time people try them after years of what they are used to, have their eyes go wide like coming off a 3 month starvation, as a melon truly is that wonderful of event when completely right.
Charentais get a great deal of the headlines, because the region does produce good melons and there is something about being in southern France, with the agrarian French, and you getting a slice of melon in the morning and this thing goes of in your mouth like an orgasm, as it is like nothing you have tried before...........that is they have a legend about them, as nothing tastes like a Charentais and until you have tried one, you never know what that taste is.
There are so many melons to love, the Jewish Haogen which does love me, but it is a green spicy melon and I am not fond of her...........the Casaba, the Canary Islands, the little Asians in their crisps to the Stan melons in their rather white watery blandness, akin to the Tiger melons so pretty, but so milk toast.
I would love to have the time to just every autumn travel to places where apples of all kinds were before me, melons of all kinds, to just sample them in all the wonderful flavors God employed, as like rhubarb, there is none of them which taste the same from different genus to different location.
It is a shame in this life, that there is never enough time to try all the melons and apples there are, but then I have found that there is too much time in life at most times, in having Irish Setters own you, as having had two petite rouge ruby, I do not think my heart is capable of burying another one. Perhaps in God's thousand year reign I will try again or get mine back from the grave then in special mercy............so I suffer in not enough time for melons and too much for the du chein, a little black plastic, starting your melons inside, planting them in a coffee can guard so you can water them and cut worms do not bite them off, and melons will love you in most cases.
I think I might go out and open my ice box and lovingly admire my little grey melon. Such artistry by God should be admired.
agtG
