Tips on Picking the Best Melons and Pineapple

When you go to the supermarket and look at the wide selection of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple, how do you know which one to pick? How do you ensure that the one you picked out doesn’t taste like a radish?

Here are some tips that I have gotten over the years that may help you in picking out the sweetest one in the bunch:

Watermelon is a summer fruit. The best months to get it is June through August. When you pick watermelon, you should pat your belly and then pat the watermelon. The recommendation is to pick the one that has the most similar sound to when you pat your belly. Also it should have a big brown or yellow patch on it (the patch should not be white). This is where the melon sat on the ground to ripen in the sun. Seeded watermelon tend to be sweeter than non-seeded variety. Cantaloupe is also a summer fruit, with peak season of June through August. Pick a cantaloupe that has a golden color (not green) since it will not ripen off the vine, and should sound hollow when knocked on. Smell the cantaloupe where the stem was – it should have a sweet smell. Although this is not very scientific, from experience I have found that the ugliest cantaloupe (with the biggest brown patches) are also the sweetest. Honeydew has its peak season also in the summer – June through August. The color of the honeydew should be a golden yellow-green color, not a light beige color. It should smell sweet and feel firm, but not too hard. Also, find one that has some “sugar lines” or veining on the skin. Hold the honeydew in both hands and shake it from side to side. You should hear some rattling sounds from the seeds if it is ripe. Pineapple is a spring fruit, with peak season from March to June. Unlike some of the other fruit, one key thing about picking pineapple is not only do you want to get a ripe one, you want to get one that is not overripe as it will taste fermented and really bad. Smell the bottom of the pineapple – it should have a sweet smell and not a rotting smell. Also check if the bottom has mold; don’t pick it if it does. The pineapple should have large eyes. The larger the eyes, the better. A pineapple can be green on top and still be sweet, but it should at least be yellow on the bottom. Pineapples ripen from bottom to top so the bottom of a pineapple is the sweetest part.

Hope these tips will help you next time you are debating which one to get at the market. Happy picking!


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