How to Choose a Good Watermelon (My Father Finally Figured It Out)

There is not much my father Sakis has done for the better part of fifty years that he hasn’t done with watermelons.

For most of that time, he was like anyone else in his approach.

You look at them, pick up a specimen that is big enough and of the proper colour, and give it a tap on the side with your knuckle. He would do as men of his generation are wont to do, as though the fruit might offer some kind of answer if you knocked hard enough.

Therefore, it was hit-or-miss.

My mother Zina put up with it, being patient as she is with a great many things. But a few summers back Sakis had a change of heart.

He began to put in the work at the market, asking around and doing some reading. He would try out different methods on a number of melons in a season to see what stuck, building a system he could rely on instead of his old habits.

Take last August. He put in six watermelons over the summer and they were all first rate. Zina made note of it, which in our house is as good as a standing ovation. What follows is the sum of what he has learned, along with some of the research he didn’t see fit to talk about.

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