Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe is one of the popular melons consumed in the United States. Although referred to as a cantaloupe, the cantaloupe in the United States is in fact a muskmelon. The true cantaloupe exists in Europe and has a rough and warty surface unlike the netted characteristics found in the United States. The best way to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe and ready to eat is by the color of its skin beneath its rough covering net. The skin should be cream-colored, running to orange. The stem, where the melon separated from the vine, should give a little when pushed with the finger. Overall, the cantaloupe should be firm and feel a little heavy for its size. If you smell a ripe cantaloupe, it has a rich, musky scent that hints of its sweet flavor. In the United States, cantaloupes are primarily grown in California, Arizona, and Texas with the peak season being June through August. However, the fruit is available year around in most grocery stores. A common method used to judge the ripeness of cantaloupe is listening for the seeds to rattle inside the melon when it is shaken slightly. This is a very poor method at best. If you happen to be the fifth person to shake the poor melon, its seeds may rattle whether it's ripe or not. Care in shipping, as well as water volume during various stages of the melon's growth, could also affect the condition of the seeds. Since cantaloupes have no starch reserves to convert to sugar, they will not ripen further once they have left the vine. They're picked when they are ripe but still firm, to protect them during shipping. Invariably, some are picked too early, so it is important to know the characteristics of a ripe cantaloupe.
Cantaloupe
Cantaloupes may be football shaped or spherical, and while it's natural for the melon to be slightly bleached on one side from lying on the ground as it grew, it should not be flattened or lopsided. The melon that Americans call cantaloupe -- the most popular melon in the United States -- is actually a muskmelon. True cantaloupe comes from Europe and has a rough, warty surface quite unlike the netted rind of our familiar fruit. The khaki-colored skin of an American cantaloupe has green undertones that ripen to yellow or cream. Food historians have been befuddled when it comes to determining the exact origin of the melon. Some say it was in Persia that the melon was first eaten; others say Afghanistan while still other historians pinpoint Armenia. Cantaloupes were cultivated in Egypt and across to Iran and Northwest India dating as far back to Biblical times, about 2400 BCE. Egyptian paintings dating back to that period include fruits that are identified as melons. In the ancient world no distinction was made between melons that were netted, such as the cantaloupe, or non-netted, as in the honeydew. When Moses led the Hebrew people into the desert where they wandered for 40 years, one of the foods they craved was melons, possibly a variety of cantaloupe. In Numbers 11:5 the Hebrews remembered, "the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons." In the Gilgamesh, a Sumerian epic completed about 2000 BCE, the hero, a Babylonian king named for the poem, ate "cassia melons," a name indicating the fruit had a spicy aromatic flavorAll throughout the Middle East, dried and roasted melon seeds have long been a favorite snack. Between 200 to100 BCE, even the Chinese royalty were enjoying melon seeds.













































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