Watermelon Season
Summer, to me, means watermelon season. A perfect slice of watermelon is without a doubt my favorite food in the world, and I spend all year looking forward to the first slice of the season. Crisp, sweet, and refreshing, there truly may be no better food on Earth.
Not all watermelons are created equal though, and picking the most perfect melon is no easy task. No matter how great your watermelon picking methodology may be, if you buy them often enough, you will inevitably pick a dreaded mealy melon from time to time – and what a disappointment it will be when you crack it open to reveal a grainy, disintegrating center.
My enthusiastic love of watermelon allows me to overlook an occasionally dull-flavored specimen or too-thick rind. What prevents my love of watermelon from being utterly unconditional, however, is its tendency towards mealiness. Most painful of all, mealy melons usually signify overripeness, meaning that awful mushy texture often coincides with the pinnacle of watermelon flavor.
While you may not be able to enjoy a mealy watermelon in the same way you would a perfect one (which, in my opinion, should be eaten totally unadorned in thin slices cut from a melon that was refrigerated before being cut, for maximum refreshment), you can absolutely still capitalize on all that flavor while bypassing the grainy texture.
My favorite treatment of a mealy melon is to turn it into a single-ingredient watermelon slushy. I start by cutting the watermelon into small chunks and throwing half of them in the freezer and the other half in the refrigerator. Once the freezer-half is thoroughly frozen, I simply blend the frozen and refrigerated watermelon together until the mixture is smooth. Though I typically end up using equal amounts of each in the end, I find that starting with mostly refrigerated watermelon and adding the frozen pieces in bit by bit helps the blender process it without struggle. If needed, you can always add some water to thin it out, which will help the blender along, but avoid adding too much water so the flavor remains concentrated and full. Maintaining the flavor’s concentration is also the reason for not just freezing the whole batch and blending with water or refrigerating it all and blending with ice.
Typically mealy watermelons have great flavor, but if you find yourself with one that’s a little bland, you can supplement the sweetness with some added sugar or by blending in another flavorful fruit – peaches or strawberries would be delicious. You can certainly add a pinch of salt or a squeeze of lime to bring some depth to the slushy, but I think it shines brightest in its simplest form.