It's Santa Claus Melon Season, Motherf*cker

All hail the king of melons.

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Vince Mancini

A few years ago at my podcast/life partner Matt Lieb’s bachelor party on the Russian River, I led a search party of hungry dudes to the local grocery store in search of snacks. This being the Russian River (something of a foodie getaway destination sandwiched between various wine growing regions in rural NorCal) it was a very nice grocery store, and we just sort of grabbed a bunch of stuff on a lark.

One of our finds was a funky-looking melon with bumpy green skin shaped vaguely like a spaghetti squash. We cut it in half to reveal snowy white meat the color of Santa Claus’s beard (that’s actually not where the name comes from, but we’ll get to that) inside an actually-pretty-thin rind.

Now, I’m not the world’s biggest melon-head, though I do enjoy a refreshing summer watermelon as much as the next guy. I love a ripe honeydew (though they never seem that ripe) and may even fuck with an above average cantaloupe on occasion — especially if I have some cured meat around to wrap it with and I’m feeling extra European (a pretty similar flavor combination to the “Hawaiian” pizza that everyone pretends to object to so much, as long as we’re on the subject).

But man. This was so, so much better than any of those. The taste was sweet, but not cloyingly so, with a juicy, melt-in-your mouth texture that was more like a mango than some of the more fibrous, jicama-like melons. You don’t normally make core sense memories on a bachelor party, but there I was. Straight vibing with a new melon I never even existed. A beautiful thing.

In the two or three years since, I’ve only been able to find them a couple more times. Every time, without exception, they’ve managed to live up to the memory. My time came again this past week, and the Santa Claus melon fulfilled my self-created expectations once again.

The Santa Claus is, in my opinion, the perfect melon. The beau ideal. The king of melons. My favorite recipe? Just cut it open and eat it.

You want facts? Sure. The Santa Claus melon is so named not for its snowy white interior flesh, but thanks to their “extended storage properties.” Which means that melons harvested in the fall will actually keep until Christmastime (provided that you don’t cut them open). This also accounts for their other name, “Christmas Melons.” In Spain, where they were first cultivated in the southeastrn part of the country, they were (and are still) called “piel de sapo,” which translates to “toad skin,” in reference to the bumpy green skin.

Piel de Sapo melons, botanically classified as Cucumis melo, are a category of several varieties of muskmelons belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family. […] The melons are also known as “Croc melons” in Australia for their similarity in rind texture to crocodile skin. [Source]

Well sure, I love me a muskmelon.

Still, they’ve been harder to find than you might expect. So I reached out to fellow Santa Claus melon enthusiast Matt Taylor from InTheKitchenWithMatt for some tips.

“It’s funny, they are really easy to find here in Arizona,” Taylor says, boastfully. “I believe there is a local grower and that’s why we get them at our normal Kroger supermarkets as well as our farmer’s markets. They’re usually out mid June through August. In other places like southern Spain the season will be September through October.”

Okay, fine, but why can’t I find them more easily? Who’s been bogarting my beautiful melons?

“Not sure why they are so hard to find,” Taylor says. “They do need hot areas to grow and maybe other growers in the US don’t have extra room to grow them and prefer to just plant the popular melons like watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.”

A representative from Specialty Produce in San Diego echoes this theory, writing “In the US, there’s less market demand for [Santa Claus melons] than for cantaloupe and honeydew, making them more of a seasonal delicacy. The only way to increase availability is to connect with local melon producers and express interest.”

Well, if anyone involved with BIG MELON is reading this, let it be known: throw out some of your cantaloupes and plant some Santa Claus Melons! The public, or at least me and five or six other people, demand it! I’m just a middle-aged man, standing in front of my laptop, demanding a regional melon grower near me heed my plaintive call for more Santa Claus melons.

“As far as other melons you might like,” Taylor says, “try the Gaya Melon (Snowball Melon) and the Juan Canary melon. The lemon drop melon is another nice one to try. And definitely check out the Korean melon too, and with those make sure to eat the seeds along with the melon since that’s where the sweetness comes from.”

A Gaya Melon, via Melissa’s Produce

Juan Canary Melon, via SpecialtyProduce

Lemon Drop:

Korean Melon:

I don’t know about you, but those have all been added to my suddenly-lengthy Melons-To-Try List. Thanks, Matt, turns out everyone needs a Melon Sherpa.

Other Food Stuff

Here’s my friend and long-time colleague Drew Magary, who reviewed a burger joint in Oakland, but more importantly released this video of him putting what I can only describe as a concerning amount of ketchup on his burger.

sfgate

A post shared by @sfgate

Five packets!? Mind-boggling. I think when you use this much, you’re legally required to spell it “catsup.”

Drew and I have long clashed over his famous and unfair aversion to mayo, which I on the other hand love¹. (It’s just eggs, oil, and lemon! It’s delicious and moist! I make my own and lick the excess off the spoon!). He also famously suffered a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, which he wrote a whole book about and has been open about how it has affected his sense of smell and taste. In light of that, I asked whether the ketchup thing is something he’s always done or if it’s new. “Always,” according to Drew.

Hey, go figure. In any case, Magary declares the Hyphy Burger with “you feel me sauce” he got in Oakland as “the best burger I’ve ever eaten” (as astute readers might’ve already noted from the video title). And the craziest part? It was only $7.99. Considering the cheapest ground beef I can find in a grocery store these days rarely comes in under $6 a pound, that’s pretty wild. (Yes, pedants, I will one day buy a meat grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid, but even chuck steaks cost a pretty penny these days).

Either way, I applaud Mr. Magary for putting his deranged ketchup habit out there for all to see, and in the process holding himself up for what will surely be an inordinant amount of online ridicule. If you ever want to start an argument on the internet, just mention hamburgers. America truly is a land of burger.

Also, according to me, these are the three best restaurant-related posts of all time:

Burger Bitch:

Floofy’s:

Crab Fuck Shack:

Okay, that’s enough nonsense for one Sunday. I hope I have inspired you all to join my melon fan club.

1. Best fry sauce? Americans say ketchup, the Belgians and Dutch say mayo, the Brits say malt vinegar. Thousand island/burger sauce is an obvious compromise, but sometimes I’ll also go with a little mix of mayo and vinegar with a pinch of salt. Thank me later.