DECKER MELONS

If you’ve never tasted a Decker melon, I send my condolences---I pity ME as well, sorta, for we just discovered these seemingly only-in-Indiana marvels about ten years ago---a lifetime before, and then the first ten years of our residence wasted on mere cantaloupes, juicy and sweet though they were.

There’s a SEASON to these hefty peach-hued beauties, and it lasts for a blink, in the moment between “It’s JULY!!” and “Where has this month GONE?” They appear in Farmers’ Markets and several fortunate grocery stores, their roundnesses swelling out of the big cardboard floor displays, and those same round contours making it almost impossible to reach WAY down into that waist-high container and heave one up with your free hand.

See this---that’s a quarter. The thing has the general shape and size of a basketball, with MUCH, MUCH more heft, and none of that filigree frou-frou of a true cantaloupe. The two this week weighed in at a little over fifteen pounds between them.

They are worth the grab, the wrestle, the drive-to-wherever-you-find-them. They are a magnificent fruit---great goldish smooth orbs of satiny skin covering the most-juice-per-ounce of any fruit save a home-grown tomato.

You nestle the big ball into the car, cradling it gently into the backseat---I swear, if the season lasted longer, there'd be folks buying them their own carseats. And you’ll take it into the house two-armed, careful of bumps and bruises, fearful of the loss of a single bright bite of this unusual delicacy.


Onto the counter, and you’ll have to force yourself to stow the milk and ice cream into their cool places before you lay knife to this lovely treat---the smooooth of it, the promise of the fleeting delights to come are like few other anticipations. Better place it on a big tray, for a cutting board will be flooded before you can finish your task. A long knife centered, a surprisingly-gentle yield to the blade, and a soft thunch, somewhere between a crack and a sigh, and it breaks with the force of the great golden weight within, yielding up its treasure.

The scent wafts into the kitchen, the colors gleam in any light, and if you can force yourself to cut a slice, peel it, and then eat it with a mannerly fork---you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. A quick hack for a juicy mouthful, brimming lips curving into a smile matching the moons you’re going to carve. WHERE HAS THIS BEENN ALL YOUR LIFE?!

A gentle spoon-scrape to remove the seeds, and you’re THERE.

Deckers are decidedly hard to peel---not from toughness, as so many squashes and melons are. They have their own problems: the flesh is so very tender and yielding, it’s very difficult to separate peel from fruit without making decided finger-scallops in the delicate meat. This is Bib-Fruit, folks.

But once cut---moonsmiles or chunks (we prefer chunks, cut into a big flat rectangular Tupperware---it’s just SO EASY to flip that handy lid and extract a few with an eager fork, foraging for a moment, chewing great juicy mouthfuls (oh-so-careful not to touch another single hunk than the one you’re spearing, of course). We take a bowl to the fridge, clump out a dozen, and sit down to dessert, a break, a refreshing cool pause in the day.

And in their last days, when the slump overtakes them, and a great weep of juice has leaked into the bowl, though NOTHING is ever needed to improve their flavor, give them a suitable farewell by tossing all that's left into the blender with a tot of rum or vodka---a perfect sendoff to a perfect Summer taste.

I just cannot tell you of all the delights of a Decker Melon, that Brigadoon-Fruit with the lifespan of a bubble---they’re sweet and smooth and the most delicious of all melons that there are. I don’t know if they grow anywhere but here, and the season truly is RIGHT NOW, but I hope you get to taste one.

And not just once---for somehow I always think that the addictive enticements of Goblin Market were nothing but Decker Melons.