How to Choose The Best Melons

 I love watching people in the produce department. It is like a comedy club, watching all of the techniques that shoppers use when they try to figure out if peaches are ripe, or cherries are juicy. But the most amusing action is always around the melon bins.

You’ve got your sniffers, the ones that nearly bury their noses in the ends of melons while checking their aroma.  You’ve got your thumpers, the ones that knock on melons like they are waiting for some melon dweller to come to the door. And you’ve got my favorite—the shakers, the ones that hoist those ten or twenty-pound melons up over their shoulders and listen while they shake them like tambourines.

All of these methods have a little bit going for them, but to spend your melon dollars most wisely, check out these melon-buying tips:

• WATERMELONS:  Field growers themselves practice the best method: give the melon a good thump. If the sound is hollow, the melon is ripe. Another indicator is color—look for a melon that has a smooth, creamy-color underside.
• CANTALOUPES: Sweet, ripe cantaloupes—or muskmelons—will have no stem, but instead a smooth, shallow basin where the stem was once attached. Their netting will be even, thick and corky, with a buff skin color under the netting.
• HONEYDEWS: Look for pale, creamy-color skin with the slightest greenish cast. The fruits will have a slight give when pressed at the stem end, and the ripest picks will feel a little sticky to the fingers.