Day 154

Korean Melon: After a great Vietnamese lunch yesterday, it was great to get back to some real shopping for the blog. Obviously the weather messed me up for a few days, but it was way past time to venture out and look. Since I was close to the BHFM, me and GF decided to stop in for some browsing. I had never seen them that busy - guess the bad weather made everyone want to shop since it was actually nice yesterday. As usual, I hit the produce section on the way in and found a few interesting new things. Like I said before, it's getting harder to find new things there. I've eaten my way through a lot of their usual inventory, so now I usually look for new arrivals or specialty items.

When I spotted this Korean melon, it looked interesting enough to try. I didn't know anything about this variety, but I'm usually not a big fan of any sort of melon. It never tastes like much to me, and I regard it as "filler fruit," especially in fruit salads. Anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. I picked out a small specimen, and it ended up costing about $1. Not bad.

I decided to try it today, but before I did, I had to do some research on how to eat it. That's a fairly common practice for me, since a lot of the items I buy don't exactly come with directions. One website I found instructed me to slice it lengthwise, scoop out the seeds with a spoon, then peel the outer skin, leaving the firm inner flesh for consumption. OK, done.

Once I prepared it for eating, I was actually quite happy with the results. It was much sweeter than cantaloupe or honeydew, and had a clean, fruity flavor that was surprising. The flesh was more on the crunchy side, almost like a cucumber. Even though I'm not crazy about melon, I liked this Korean version and could have easily eaten a bit more of it. From what I've read, this variety is frequently served as dessert, sometimes with a bit of sugar added. I'm not sure if I'd replace my usual dessert options with this, but it was still tasty.