Fortunately, watermelon isn’t a drug; if so, I am hopelessly addicted. Southerners who don’t love watermelon are worse than Yankees who turn up their noses at black-eyed peas.
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.”
To satisfy my addiction, I go to the Farmer’s Market on weekends and buy watermelons, but I must confess that although I thump them, I have no idea what sound differentiates the ripest melon from others. With a knowing expression on my face and an ear cocked closely to the divine green orbs, I go through the ritual so that anyone watching will surmise that I am an expert thumper and watermelon connoisseur.
That is, until this past weekend. While his wife waited, a man patiently thumped every melon in the cart, and then to verify his choice, thumped one of them several more times, announced to the missus that it was the ripest of the bunch, and put it in her shopping basket.
He looked like an affable old gent, so I asked, “ Would you explain your watermelon thumping technique to me?”
“Why, shucks, son,” he said, “tain’t nothing to it. It’s all about resonance.” Noticing that my pallid, bland 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 sounded 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, 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 with corners ain’t a watermelon.
The word watermelon first appeared in the English dictionary in 1615, meaning we Occidentals began our love affair with the king of fruits about four hundred years ago.
Today, farmers in almost every American state grow watermelons, thanks to Charles Fredric Andrus, a South Carolina horticulturist. In 1954, he debuted 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, go to the Farmers Market, buy a watermelon, and enjoy what angels eat.
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)).
