Southerners who don’t love watermelon are missing a true gustatory delight, as surely as are Yankees who don’t eat black-eyed peas and cornbread.
As Mark Twain said, “The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart. It is king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth, and must not be mentioned with commoner things. When one tastes watermelon, he knows what angels eat.”
On weekends, I go to the Farmer’s Market and buy a watermelon, but I confess that although I thump them, I have no idea what sound differentiates ripe and not-so-ripe melons.
With an ear cocked to the divine green orbs, I go through the thumping ritual, and assuming I’ve discovered one that angels would pick, I buy it. I’m right about half the time.
One Saturday morning, I watched a melon thumper who looked like he knew what he was doing. While his wife waited, he thumped one after another, thumped one of them several more times, and announcing to the missus that it was the ripest of the bunch, put it in her shopping basket.
“Sir, you obviously know how to thump melons,” I said. “Would you explain your technique to me?”
“Why, shucks, son,” he said, “tain’t nuttin’ to it. It’s all about resonance.” Noticing that my blank face bespoke blankness even blanker than its perpetual blankness, he explained.
“Resonance … that’s what it is all about. Listen while I thump several of these melons. Notice the difference?”
Blankly, I responded, “No, sir, they all sound the same to me.”
Patiently, he repeated the process, but before doing so he suggested I listen closely for those with lower resonances. Sure enough, I noticed that one melon emitted a deeper, fuller, more reverberating sound upon being thumped than the others, and told him so.
“That’s the one, son. Buy that melon … you will eat every bite of it.” I did, and I did.
Watermelon isn’t just a Southern delicacy. Records show that it was cultivated in the Nile Valley beginning in the second millennium B.C.
Farmers in the Orient have addicted customers to watermelon as far back as the Tenth Century A.D., and recently the Japanese introduced the world’s first square watermelon, which I consider a sacrilege. A watermelon ought not to have corners.
The word watermelon first appeared in the English dictionary in 1615, and records indicate Americans began their love affair with the king of fruits several hundred years ago.
Today, farmers in almost every state grow watermelons, thanks to Charles Fredric Andrus, a South Carolina horticulturist. In 1954, he developed the disease- and wilt- resistant Charleston Gray that can be cultivated over a wide geographical area. All modern commercial varieties have some Charleston Gray in their lineage.
If you want to make the Dog Days of summer more tolerable, enjoy fresh, sweet, juicy watermelon. And if you want to be certain that you’ll enjoy what angels eat, remember what the expert thumper taught me: It’s all about resonance.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
