“These are all winter melons. This one is called "old lady melon." It is very sweet, very soft,' Karim said, running his hand over the melon's tight folds. Round as a football, heavy and full, its skin was ribbed like thick corduroy, its wrinkly stalk curved as a coat hook. Taking his knife, Karim carved a sickle moon from the seaweed-green melon, exposing, almost indecently, the melon's flesh, creamy as magnolia. In the middle, a tightly packed jelly-ball of seeds-- unlike watermelons, which have their seeds scattered throughout-- managed to hold its form despite the cut. From this strange melon came a uniquely robust fruitiness, mixing overripe pear with Bourbon vanilla. He held up the melon proudly, an example of the fruit in its prime, the cross-section of its seed house, glistening in the sunshine. In Uzbekistan it is the trader who decides when a melon is ready. There are no stickers ordering the buyer to 'ripen at home'. He handed me the slithery wedge and I tried to unpick the flavors as grievous wasps landed drunkenly on the scattered rinds. First, sherbet. Then a little honey mixed with almond extract and, finally, pineapple and the smoothness of rum.” TasteScentOld LadyMelonsUzbekistanCreamy Book:Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels Source: Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels
“The scent, though, is its own feast. In the cutting and cubing of it, more of its hard-to-pin-down ambrosial smell is dispensed, rising up like fresh-cut grass melding with cool iris. Batting away the temptation to eat a few coral-red wedges over the sink, I indulge, instead, in the anticipation of pleasure, imagining how, when I finally get to it, the melon's singular watery crunchiness-- it is a cousin of the cucumber-- and its copious juiciness will be sorbet-like on the tongue, as fresh and awakening as a glass of soda.” TasteScentTurkishMelons Book:Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels Source: Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels