"Melon" Discovered!

When Jon and I were in Jordan the hotel where we lived served the most delicious melon every morning for breakfast. It was a type of melon I'd never had before; it tasted like a super sweet cantaloupe but with the texture of honeydew melon. I loved it and looked forward to it every morning. But when I asked Arab waiter at the hotel what type of melon it was he just looked at me strange, said something in Arabic, looked a the other waiter who just shrugged and then realizing the name wasn't going to translate, told me "Melon, it is melon". Not helpful.

When we got home I searched for anything remotley similar to this "melon" but couldn't find it. I finally figured that "melon" was just something (like the amazing Arabic spice za'atar) that I'd have to wait to have again till I went back to the Middle East. In the meantime, Jon and I never let an opporutnity pass us by to tell people about our amazing "melon" experience, hoping they'd know what type of fruit we were talking about.

It had been several years since we'd last tasted this delicious "melon" when on Saturday Jon and I went to the Farmer's Market and bought one of these

a crenshaw melon

and guess what

it was a "melon"!

We had no idea when we bought it what a crenshaw melon was or what it tasted like. So imagine our absolute glee when we cut it open and discovered our beloved "melon"! It was every bit as wonderful and delicious as I remember. Jon and I are thrilled to be reunited with our long lost "melon" and are even delighted that it can be grown where we live! I just sort of wish that it had a more romantic name, "crenshaw melon" just doesn't seem to do it justice. "Cantadew", "honeylope" or even "juicy fruit of heaven" seem like more appropriate names to me. I wonder what the real Arabic name for it is? Hopefully it doesn't sound anything like crenshaw. Maybe we'll just keep calling it "melon".