Sunday Supper: Watermelon

This column has covered a lot of ground in the past several months. Fried chicken and cornbread, banana pudding and biscuits, pie crust, and even a thorough pantry organization. Most of it has required technique, judgment, and at least one firm opinion about which fat belongs in which dish. This week requires none of that.

Watermelon does not need a recipe or a fancy technique. It does not need anything from the cook beyond the good sense to buy a ripe one, the patience to chill it properly, and the willingness to eat it outside, where the mess is less of an issue.

What it does need is a column, because there are things worth saying about watermelon that do not fit anywhere else, including how to choose one, whether to salt or not to salt, about what this fruit means on a summer table in southern Middle Tennessee, and about why it belongs in a series about Southern food even though nobody cooks it and it requires no skill to prepare.

Watermelon is Southern summer itself, made edible and portable. That is reason enough.

Choosing the Right One

A ripe watermelon announces itself if you know how to read it, and the reading takes about thirty seconds at a farm stand or produce display.

Look at the field spot first. This is the patch on the underside of the melon where it rested on the ground while it grew. A white or pale yellow field spot indicates the melon was picked underripe. A deep, buttery yellow field spot means it sat on the vine long enough to develop properly. This is the single most reliable indicator of ripeness, and the one most people walk past without checking.

Pick the melon up. A ripe watermelon is heavy for its size, dense with juice. A melon that feels lighter than expected has begun to dry out or was never fully ripe to begin with. The weight is not subtle. A good melon feels noticeably substantial.

Look at the surface. A dull, matte rind indicates ripeness. A shiny rind suggests the melon was picked too early. The surface should also be firm, with no soft spots that indicate bruising or over-ripeness beneath the skin.

The knock test. Yes, it’s a real thing! Thumping the melon with a knuckle and listening for a deep, hollow sound is the technique most associated with watermelon selection and also the most variable. A hollow thump does suggest a ripe, juicy melon, but the sound varies enough by variety and size that it is most useful as a confirming detail after the field spot and weight have already given a positive reading.

Cold. Always Cold.

A watermelon served at room temperature has not reached its potential. The cold is not just a matter of preference. It is about flavor. The sweetness of the fruit reads differently at refrigerator temperature than at room temperature, cleaner and more focused, the way a good sweet tea reads differently, made properly cold versus warm with sugar stirred in.

Chill a whole watermelon in the refrigerator for at least four hours before cutting it. A full day is better. If the melon is too large for the refrigerator intact, cut it in half and wrap the halves. Note that the exposed flesh will chill faster and more evenly than the rest of the fruit. You can also use my personal favorite method – a cooler full of ice and the watermelon nestled deep inside.

Cut it cold and serve it cold, and do not let it sit out longer than necessary. Watermelon left at room temperature on a summer afternoon softens faster than expected, losing the crisp snap of the cold flesh that makes each bite satisfying.

The Salt Question

There are a few topics in Southern food that produce the immediate, instinctive response that salt on watermelon produces. Ask a room of Southerners and the room will divide almost immediately, each side genuinely puzzled by the other.

The salt camp argues that a small pinch of flaky salt on a slice of cold watermelon does what salt always does to sweet things: it heightens the sweetness, draws out the flavor, and adds a counterpoint that makes each bite more interesting than the last. This is not a novel idea. Salt on sweet fruit is a technique with a long history in Southern and global cooking alike, and the people who do it are not being contrarian. They have simply discovered that the watermelon tastes better with it.

The no-salt camp holds that a ripe watermelon at the peak of the season needs nothing added to it, that interference of any kind is a reflection on the quality of the fruit rather than an enhancement of it, and that salt belongs on savory food. A good watermelon, on this argument, speaks clearly enough without help. This position is also defensible, has a long tradition behind it, and produces a perfectly excellent experience of eating watermelon.

Both camps are correct for their own eating, and neither has any business telling the other what to do with their slice. Put the salt on the table. Let people decide. The only wrong answer is insisting there is one right answer.

Seeded or Seedless

Seedless watermelons are a relatively recent development, commercially widespread since the 1990’s, and they have become the dominant variety in grocery stores and at most farm stands because they are easier to eat, especially for children. The flesh tends to be crisper and the flavor slightly more consistent than seeded varieties, though some longtime watermelon growers argue that the old seeded varieties have a deeper, more complex sweetness that seedless cannot match.

Seeded watermelons, the long, striped varieties that used to be the standard at every farm stand and roadside truck, are still grown in Tennessee and still available if you look for them. Eating one is partly a flavor experience, and partly a reminder of what summer used to feel like when the seeds were part of the transaction, and no one considered them an inconvenience.
Both are watermelons. Neither is wrong. Buy the best one available where you are, whatever variety it happens to be, and eat it cold.

How It Gets Served

• Cut into wedges at the table, passed around, eaten with your hands and a napkin, and with no particular formality. This is the traditional presentation and still the right one for most occasions. The rind gives you something to hold. The red flesh is what you are after. The eating is unselfconscious, slightly messy, and entirely appropriate for a summer afternoon.

• Cut into cubes and served in a bowl, watermelon becomes more presentable and practical for a crowd, easier to serve and eat without drips. Add a few fresh mint leaves and a squeeze of lime if the occasion calls for something that looks intentional. The lime and mint belong with watermelon, the way they belong in a good summer drink.

• Grilled watermelon, while it sounds like something invented by a restaurant in a city, is worth trying at least once. Thick slices on a hot grill for two minutes per side develop a caramelized crust and a concentrated sweetness that is genuinely interesting served with a little feta and fresh basil. This is not traditional, but if you love trying something new, it’s worth a go!

What It Means on a Summer Table

Watermelon at a summer gathering is not just dessert. It is a signal that the season is fully underway, that the pace of the day has slowed enough to sit outside with cold fruit and nowhere particular to be, that the kind of eating that requires silverware and deliberation is suspended for a while in favor of something that requires only a knife to cut and a hand to hold it.

It appears at every reunion, every cookout, every afternoon gathering of any size in Middle Tennessee from late June through August. You will find them on back porches, at picnic tables, and on the tailgates of trucks parked in the shade of whatever tree is available. It is eaten by people of every age in exactly the same way, and the enjoyment is identical across the whole range of them.

A series about Southern food and what it means to cook and eat in this part of the country is not complete without watermelon, even though watermelon requires no cooking and no column to explain it. Some things belong in the conversation because they are part of life, not because they are complicated.

Summer in Moore County is not complete without it. Buy a good one, chill it overnight, cut it cold, put it on the table, and let the season be exactly what it is.

A Note on Watermelon Rind Preserves

The rind of a watermelon, which most people discard without a second thought, is the basis for one of the older preservation traditions in Southern cooking. Watermelon rind preserves, made from the white portion of the rind after the red flesh has been removed and the green outer skin peeled away, are cooked with sugar and lemon into a translucent, mildly sweet preserve with a texture somewhere between a firm jelly and a candied fruit.

The flavor is delicate and faintly floral, nothing like the red flesh, and the finished preserves are lovely on biscuits or alongside a cheese plate in a way that most people would not predict from the raw ingredient. They are also a genuinely thrifty use of something that would otherwise go directly into the compost.

Watermelon rind preserves were standard in Southern kitchens when wasting any part of a seasonal food was not an option and when the larder was built from whatever the season provided. Making a batch is an act of connection to that tradition and a good argument for paying attention to the whole fruit rather than just the part everyone eats first.

Salt or no salt? Seeded or seedless? Is there a farm or roadside stand in Moore County where you buy your watermelon every summer without fail? And what does a summer afternoon with cold watermelon look like at your table? Email larder@mcobserver.news or message us on Facebook.