Melon
Chill the melons, cut in half, take out the seeds, and serve.
Barely a recipe, and that is the point: the whole of it rests on the melon being ripe and genuinely cold. A few notes on both.
- What a Rocky Ford melon wasA netted muskmelon of the type sold today as cantaloupe, though the early Rocky Ford melons were small and often described as green-fleshed rather than the deep orange now usual. Any melon that smells sweet at the blossom end and gives slightly there will do what the menu intends.
- Judging ripenessThe stem end should be a smooth, slightly sunken scar rather than a torn stub, which means the fruit slipped from the vine on its own. Cantaloupe does not sweeten after picking, so a hard, scentless melon will not improve on the counter beyond softening.
- Chilling means hours, not minutesA whole melon needs several hours in the refrigerator to cool through to the seed cavity. Cut halves chill faster but dry at the surface; if you cut ahead, cover the faces.
- Wash the rind before cuttingNetted rind holds soil, and the knife carries whatever is on the outside straight into the flesh. Scrub under running water with a brush and dry the melon before halving it. This is the one genuine hazard in an otherwise trivial preparation.
- SeedingA spoon lifts the seed mass and its stringy pulp out in one piece if you run it around the cavity wall first. Do not scrape into the firm flesh; the sweetest part sits just inside the cavity.
- ServingHalf a medium cantaloupe per person; melon of this kind was commonly served as a first course rather than as dessert. Salt, or thin salt-cured ham, are among the accompaniments of the period; sugar on a good melon is wasted.
- Holding cut melonOnce cut, keep it refrigerated and eat it the same day. Melon flesh is low in acid and warms quickly on a buffet table, which is why cut cantaloupe has a poor safety record at room temperature.
Rocky Ford, in the Arkansas Valley of southeastern Colorado, built a national reputation for cantaloupes in the decades around 1900, when refrigerated rail cars made it possible to ship a soft, perishable fruit from a high dry valley to eastern cities. The name was stencilled on the crates and functioned as a brand, much as Idaho later did for potatoes; a menu that specified "Rocky Ford melon" was signalling quality and freight cost at once. Serving a chilled half melon at all depended on a reliable supply of ice and, later, mechanical refrigeration.