How Much Honeydew Melon is there in a Honeydew Melon?
This article is the second in my new series Edible Fruit Prices to help my readers determine the actual cost per pound they are paying for various fruit produce. Today we will examine the Honeydew Melon.
I bought a slightly less than average size whole Honeydew weighing 2137 grams, or about 4.7 pounds. After cutting out the inedible detritus, I was left with 1244 grams of delicious wedges or about 58% edible fruit. Thus the true cost of honeydews can be determined by dividing the price per pound of the uncut melon by .58 - if the melon costs $1.00 per pound then the true price per pound is 1/.58 = $1.72/lb.
Honeydew melons contain the same percentage of water as cantaloupes - 90% and so tally up only 36 calories per 100 grams.
How can I tell if it's ripe? I use three methods: shake, press, and sniff. Shake a ripe honeydew and you should feel the seeds rattling inside. Press the blossom end and it should give a little compared to the rest of the melon. Then sniff for a strong sweet smell. The only way to get good at this is to shake, press and sniff a large number of honeydews until you get it perfect.
Once you have determined that the melon is ripe, cut it into wedges and store the cut fruit in the fridge for up to 5 days; but make sure you store them in an air tight container as the juicy little things' aromatic fragrance will invade everything else around them.
But suppose there are no ripe honeydews at the supermarket? Melons are ethylene sensitive, so they will ripen faster if stored with ethylene-producing fruit. If you are having a party in a few days and need to speed up the ripening process of recently purchased unripe melons you should put them in a large paper bag along with ripe apples and bananas to trap in the ethylene gas produced. The apples and bananas will over-ripen and thus give up their lives for the sake of your melons.
I apologize to my readers from Muslim countries, especially Pakistan (read my article Pakistan Pornistan and Sex with Animals), who come to my website because I use honey-pot search terms such as great melons, juicy little things, etc. to lure Muslims to my site, only to find out I am discussing actual melons.
