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BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar?
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Subject: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Rapparee Date: 06 Jul 12 - 08:13 PM We were enjoying some chilled watermelon on the back deck this evening when the talk turned to eating watermelon. I've always put salt on mine, but my wife remembers "heated discussions" as she was growing up about whether you should use salt or sugar. I'm from West Central Illinois, on the banks of the Big River; she was born and bred in Washington, DC. and eats her watermelon without either one. I also put salt on cantaloupe. My father used sugar on tomatoes, lettuce and celery. So, how do you eat your watermelon? Besides ripe, I mean. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: ChanteyLass Date: 06 Jul 12 - 08:46 PM Plain, but I recall putting salt on it as a child. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnu Date: 06 Jul 12 - 09:16 PM Never heard of either. Claudine cuts a hole like an oval racetrack (slanted, as you would carve a pumkin) in the top, hollows it out, mixes that with crushed ice, voldka and white rum, puts it back in, sticks a ladle in it and... I forget what happens after that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bobert Date: 06 Jul 12 - 09:27 PM Like my watermelon straight up... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Wesley S Date: 06 Jul 12 - 09:41 PM Salt And back in the day we used to cut a hole in the watermelon and pour in a bottle of vodka. Then slice and eat. Salt on cantaloupe is just barbaric. In my opinion. YMMV. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: pdq Date: 06 Jul 12 - 09:45 PM The tiniest bit of salt may help cantaloupe, tomatoes and lettuce. Celery may need a bit more. Not sure about watermelon, probably salt in minute quantity. Certainly not sugar. Ripe peaches go well with sugar and a little water. Cut in wedges and stir, making the peach juice, sugar and water blend together. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Ebbie Date: 06 Jul 12 - 09:50 PM My father put sugar on tomatoes- I always thought that a bit gross. I've never noticed anyone putting *anything* on watermelon. (Incidentally, I like watermelon but I always have an aftertaste of metal from it. Does anyone know what I mean?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Janie Date: 06 Jul 12 - 10:20 PM Grew up with, and love, salt on melons of any ilk. Stopped using salt in or on anything other than baking recipes that have baking powder for more years than I can count, and have learned to enjoy those melons plain - but tasty memories linger.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: katlaughing Date: 06 Jul 12 - 10:52 PM Me, too, Janie, esp. as I am eating watermelon every day lately. I did have a pinch of sea salt on a bite.:-) We also used to put salt on cantaloupe. My dad and oldest sister used to salt their grapefruit which I always put lots of sugar on. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: GUEST,highlandman at home Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:23 PM As a youngster I never heard of putting anything on watermelon, but exposure to the Southern (US) branch of the family brought the salt practice in. I'll do it both ways now as the whim strikes. Seems like the salt is better when it's brutally hot; maybe there's something physiological in it, like an isotonic sports drink. But never sugar! -Glenn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: number 6 Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:29 PM salt or sugar on a watermelon .... absolute Blasphemy!!!!!! biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bill D Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:44 PM We (as in my family) always salted watermelon when I was a kid in Kansas. We got the big, round Black Diamond melons in from Texas* at the grocery where I worked and 'many' people used some salt. I never saw anyone use sugar. *Now those long 'grey' melons are all you see. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:44 PM I don't put anything on a good watermelon, but I'll but a little salt on a not so good one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: GUEST,Stim Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:49 PM Where I grew up, the salt/sugar differences followed family lines, as did preference of spoon or fork. If a sugar/spoon boy married a salt/folk girl, she was thought to have married beneath herself, and even if he converted, the difference was never forgotten. These days, watermelons have been bred to be seedless, and so sweet that sugar is unecessary, and salt is, at least to most, unthinkable. It hasn't made marriage any easier, though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bill D Date: 06 Jul 12 - 11:58 PM Right... those delicious Black Diamond melons were full of seeds! Spitting for distance was a regular picnic game. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JennieG Date: 07 Jul 12 - 12:45 AM Neither.....I eat watermelons (and rockmelons, and all fruit) as is. Can't improve on nature, so why try? Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: MGM·Lion Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:57 AM "Barbaric"; "blasphemy"; "Can't improve on nature". Wotthehell! It's a matter of your tastebuds' reactions, for heaven's sake, not a problem in the profounder reaches of omniversal morality. Eat it the way you like it and stop prescribing other people's choices all the time, you barbaric-criers & blasphemy-denunciators. ~M·the·Mindyerownbluddybiznis-sayer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnomad Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:36 AM Never occurred to me to use either. Watermelon (to me at any rate) tastes good just as it comes. My favourite accompaniment to it would be a sunny bench on which to eat it, and company that didn't mind a bit of mess, 'cause I find that scraps and juice try to escape. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JennieG Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:52 AM You could always eat it in the bath! Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: GUEST,HiLo Date: 07 Jul 12 - 09:30 AM Lime juice on melons...very good. Never tried salt or sugar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Charley Noble Date: 07 Jul 12 - 03:36 PM Never salt or sugar, especially if you have access to mayonnaise. Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnu Date: 07 Jul 12 - 04:31 PM Yer one sick puppy, Charley. I like it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Rapparee Date: 07 Jul 12 - 05:00 PM An English friend of mine once recommended ground ginger. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jul 12 - 05:04 PM The argument about salt or sugar is a rather old one. When people used to grow their own, it was observable that in certain soils, and/or with unusual seasonal variations in moisture, watermelons can have a slightly "bitter" taste (a bit like the occasionally bitter cucumbers from the next patch), and a bit of sugar made them more palatable. (Even when the melons are "off" in taste in this way, salt actually kills the off-taste about as well as sugar, in my experience.) So far as I was ever able to determine, this was a very "localized" phenomenon, so using sugar on watermelons was mostly a "family thing" since only the melons grown in specific (garden?) plots of land would benefit consistently. For melons that matured normally, a little salt "draws the sweet" and actually may "sweeten" the taste of a "normal" melon (if that's how you like it) sufficiently. In the climates where watermelons grow best, nearly all those who actually work the plots probably have at least a slight "salt deficit" so adding some (sometimes a lot) on the watermelon is a common, and possibly good, idea. Since almost the only place we can now get watermelons is from the supermarket, and those have almost no flavor at all (especially the "seedless"** kinds), it's impossible to argue much with about anything someone wants to add to their own slice. I generally use a fair bit of salt, but maybe I'll try some barbeque sauce or Thousand Island dressing on one. It probably wouldn't hurt on the crap we've been able to get recently. ** The "seedless" ones still have about the same number of seeds. They're just too #@$!# little to SPIT. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Jul 12 - 05:10 PM Dunno what makes a 'salt' person (my wife is one), but if I can't eat it straight, it should go to the hogs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Janie Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:01 PM How about with jalapenos and tabasco? Chilled Watermelon Soup I believe this is a recipe I'd like to try! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnu Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:26 PM Certainly so, JiK. I've only ever had one from USA that wasn't good. The ones from Mexico and from ONT/PQ, Canada are a gamble. Further south than Mexico, I wouldn't buy one. The tastes range from bitter to woody. There are 15 pounders with seeds here now from USA that are selling for $4.88. Haven't tried one. I'm waiting for the seedlees ones from states like FLA and TX to drop in price in a week or two. Then I'll be buying at least one per week. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Janie Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:39 PM I buy my watermelons at the local Saturday Farmers Market. Everything there grown within 50 miles and often harvested just the day before the market, and never sooner than within the past few days because these are very small operations without the capacity to harvest and hold produce over extended periods of time. Yum!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:27 PM Family tradition does hold that watermelons have medicinal value. I may have told the story here before, and apologies if so; but: When I was a little child, my mother took me to the old-timer "Doc" with some ailment or another, and after listening to her recitation of my symptoms the Doc said "I think it might help if you fed the kid some watermelon-rind pickles." Since she had no recipe for such pickles, it took her a few days to find a neighbor with what looked like a good one, and a couple more days to get a watermelon (which of course had to be eaten) after which she made a small batch of watermelon rind pickles. (One watermelon doesn't make many pickles.) The pickles were good enough that I, of course, didn't mind my "daily dose" and after a few days of the treatment most of my symptoms had dissipated. Conscientiously, she took me back to see the Doc, and asked "why did pickles help," to which the Doc replied - "If they helped, damfiknow why, but they kept you from pesterin' me 'till the kid got over whatever it was that he had - which he would have done anyway. NOW WHERE'S MY PICKLES?" So she made another batch. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnu Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:38 PM I remember that story. Worth a second read. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Janie Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:27 PM Some of you may remember fiddler John Morris, of John and David Morris of Ivydale WV "fame" in terms of old time Appalachian music. My sister Kaye, now deceased, was 8 3/4 months pregnant when we ran into John at a Vandalia Gathering in the early 1980's. John and Kaye knew each other but weren't close and Kaye had been out of circulation with a difficult pregnancy. John hadn't seen her in several months. He marched up, put a hand on each of her shoulders and loudly announced, "Dadgum it Woman, what did I tell you! I told you to spit them watermelons seeds, out! Spit 'em right on the ground! Next time you'll listen to this ol' Clay County boy!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jul 12 - 10:08 PM While it may be just leaping to conclusions that aren't firmly in evidence, it would appear that some here have different views of "how to eat watermelon." It's fairly common now to find little bits of watermelon mixed in with other "fruits" in what amounts to "fruit salad," or small chunks on a tray as "appetizers" and even little "cubelets" sliced up on a plate; and fairly exotic enhancements might be more appropriate there. You've already desecrated the bounty, so it won't matter much what else you do to it. Messin' with it that way seems sort of "sissified" to those of us who live where the things grow; but we don't talk much 'bout bein' sympathetic for those who don't know better. In my parts, when we "eat watermelon" it means squat down and put at least a quarter of a 15 (or 30) pound melon between your knees, and attack it with a fork until nothing but pale green rind is left. (The only reason for cutting it at all is to make a place to get the fork in where you'll be able to reach it all.) Rinse yer britches a bit if you had some "spillage," or just walk around 'till yer ready fer another hunk. I don't recall anyone in my family eating a watermelon indoors 'till after I was 'bout 30 years old or so and lived in a third floor apartment for a while. (We weren't too well acquainted with the neighbors downstairs, and were a bit concerned about the flying seeds.) Someone did mention cantalopes (muskmelons, or "mushmellons" in local vernacular). I find a little bit of salt helps the flaver, but the important condiment is a goodly splatter of fairly course black pepper. Sets off the flavor 'bout right. A spoon works better for them, but about half a cantalope is usually plenty at one sitting. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Jul 12 - 10:29 PM Getting small 'seedless' watermelons in all the stores here, from Peru. They are sweet and very good (but not as sweet as those larger ones from Texas (so they had seeds- spit, spit). My wife swears by Georgia watermelons, but she is prejudiced. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Ebbie Date: 08 Jul 12 - 02:51 AM Father's Grave Buddy Tabor Juneau, Alaska My father was born in the hills of West Virginia Rode the coal cars to the train yards, went to work at seventeen Married Mama late in life, they gave birth to five children You know hard times was all he ever seen That old car he drove made him ashamed but to us it was a limousine He took the kids out riding right after Sunday school Buy watermelon and stop somewhere, eat it in those picnic chairs Spit out at each other, spit the seeds up in the air We did not know that we was poor, to us kids it did not matter But to him it broke his heart, cracked in pieces as it shattered Catch the lightning bugs in mason jars as it got dark in our backyard In a house that we grew up in that our father never owned Late at night the wind would blow and rattle on the window In this rundown house he paid the rent for 40 some odd years And though he worked hard all his life and he never drank or gambled He never owned that home that he dreamed of through silver tears When the old man died he didn't have a nickel to his name All the kids pitched in to pay for his funeral Mama's sister donated a little plot of land To lay his body down to rest in peaceful sleep And it was six feet deep and four feet wide and we covered it with flowers And thanked our father there for all he'd done 'Cause at last he had a piece of land that he could call his own No one to collect the rent on his bleached out tired old bones Tired old bones, tired old bones And at last he had a piece of land that he could call his own. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: SussexCarole Date: 08 Jul 12 - 03:06 AM A tiny bit of ground ginger or lemon juice does it for me |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: gnu Date: 08 Jul 12 - 05:58 AM Q... I have never bought any of the "mini" types. BTW... what the heck is going on with the Honey Dew melons this year? They look awful and they are small. Perhaps it's not high season. Now, "high season" here is some weeks after high season where they are grown due to physical distribution logistics. In other words, if they can be sold further south, closer to where they are grown, it takes some extra time for the good stuff to get here at a cheaper price. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jul 12 - 01:14 PM Good honeydew and canteloupe most of the year here, from Latin America when the U.S. and B. C. crop is gone. I don't salt any melon, but my wife does. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:16 AM Hi, Rap. I used to live in the Windy City, and we put salt on our watermelon. I'd forgotten that. It's been fifty years. We may have put a little salt on our canteloupe, too. I used to have a cat who loved canteloupe but she could only handle the squishy filaments from the middle. We told her it was nightcrawlers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Don Firth Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:10 AM If you get a good watermelon or cantaloupe, you shouldn't need either salt or sugar. When I was in my late teens, I used to dose my coffee with lots of cream and a couple of spoonsful of sugar. An older friend suggested that I try drinking it as is, right out of the pot, for a week. Then try it again with my usual cream and sugar. I did as he suggested, and when I tried coffee with cream and sugar a week later, it didn't taste like coffee, it tasted like syrup. Bleeah!! I've been drinking it black ever since. Thanks, Ray!! My strength is as the strength of ten because I drink my coffee pure. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Ebbie Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:53 AM Don, that story reminded me- years ago I worked in a Chinese restaurant. The Chinese cooks got in the habit of asking me to fix their coffee for them: enough cream to make it blond and enough sugar to make it shiny, even though I always drank mine black. Well, time went by and it started looking good to me and one day I had a bright idea: If I didn't think of it as coffee, I'll bet it would be delicious. So I ladled the sugar into my coffee and added the cream. BLECH and BLEAH- it was awful. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: JohnInKansas Date: 09 Jul 12 - 04:36 PM I don't have a problem with the taste of coffee either black or with a "lightener" but I do drink a lot of coffee and find that because, as one doc put it "yer innards never wuz put t'gether right" a continuous diet of black-only results in an "acid reflux" that I don't get if I add a little splash of milk. (I use the 2% 'cause that's what we keep around the house.) I don't particularly like the taste of "real cream" in my brew, and the artificial "lighteners" that are usually the only thing available at "public places" make it - for me - like drinking battery acid. It hurts, by the time I could finish the first cup. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bat Goddess Date: 09 Jul 12 - 06:51 PM I'm from Milwaukee originally, and usually your childhood home is where you get into food habits. Watermelon is naturally sweet so I really don't see the need of sugar. I don't put anything on it, but I can see the occasional dash of salt. Never actually heard of anybody putting either on watermelon. I like salt on lemons. And grapefruit requires either sugar or salt so it's not painfully tart. My mother always put sugar on sliced fresh local tomatoes, but I prefer a dash of salt. But, then again, my mother likes cucumber salad (onions and thin-sliced cucumbers in a vinegar/light cream (half & half) or yoghurt) over boiled potatoes. Well, first of all, I can't STAND boiled potatoes (that's what was served most meals in my youth) unless they're tiny new potatoes that you then let swim in butter and parsley. I love the cucumber salad, but I prefer it all by itself. On sweet corn on the cob, besides plenty of butter, I like just salt. Tom prefers salt AND pepper. He's from New England...is that why? He also taught me all about coleslaw on top of barbecue sandwiches. I think he picked that up in the Washington, DC area. Linn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Rapparee Date: 09 Jul 12 - 08:11 PM Ya drinks coffee raw, pardner, like God intended. Never ate salt on my corn until I had to start buying it at the store instead of getting fresh from the garden or from someone else (by gift or by stealth). I've experimented with butter-and-herb-blends on corn as well. And you can keep your espressos, lattes, and liquid candy bars! Real coffee first floats a horseshoe and then dissolves it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: open mike Date: 09 Jul 12 - 08:51 PM my mom used to put salt on cantelope, and sugar on tomatoes. i never did understand it. she also used to bake 1/2 grapefruits with brown sugar and marishino cherry on top |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Rapparee Date: 09 Jul 12 - 08:56 PM I've eaten green (that is, not-yet-ripe) apples with salt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Janie Date: 09 Jul 12 - 09:02 PM Since when did personal tastes become a matter of shoulds or shouldn'ts? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Goose Gander Date: 10 Jul 12 - 12:07 AM Neither! Why ruin good watermelon with sugar or salt?! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Bat Goddess Date: 10 Jul 12 - 11:14 AM Don, when I was young (18 or 19) I drank my coffee with a bit of sugar in it. No cream, though. One night I was out to dinner on a date and the coffee was AWFUL. (Shouldn't have been; it was a reasonably classy place, at least in my limited experience. Hey! Tableclothes!) Anyway, over the course of conversation, I ended up drinking it and the waitress came by to replenish the cup. It was from the same pot, by the way. I didn't object to the filling, but I wasn't going to bother adding sugar because I didn't intend to actually DRINK it. But, as my date and I continued talking, I sipped away at the coffee. And guess what...it tasted better black than with sugar in it. I've drunk my coffee black ever since -- polluted with extract of neither cow nor cane. At home I mostly drink tea, and I prefer THAT with nothing in it either. (Used to put lemon in when I drank it at my early morning breakfast spots in Kennebunkport and Cape Porpoise.) I DO like cream in iced coffee, but that's a different creature all together... Linn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: Becca72 Date: 10 Jul 12 - 12:25 PM I eat watermelon and all other fruits and veg naked....that is without salt, sugar, butter, etc. Watermelon is the only melon I can even stand the sight of. The mere smell of canteloupe turns my stomach for some reason. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Watermelon: Salt or Sugar? From: catspaw49 Date: 10 Jul 12 - 12:42 PM I prefer mine Gallagher style.......smashed and trashed. Melons in general should be allowed to die on the vine or not planted at all. At summer camp everyone but me was so excited on watermelon night. They never offered a substitute because EVERYONE loves watermelon! Y'all can just kiss my ass................... Spaw |
