Relative Something

Raving about fruit is not something you will normally find me doing. I would not be surprised to learn that I have an allergy to one or more foods from the fruit category. Maybe I’m just a bit hyper-sensitive. I get a tingling in the corners of my jaw that most people might associate with too big a bite from a sour lime, but I get it with almost every fruit I eat. I am also incredibly picky about texture. The prime palatable ripeness for me is about a 10-minute window between “not ripe enough yet” and “yuck, too ripe.”

All that being said, I know fruit is healthy for me, and I continue to consciously select it, even if I don’t usually love it. But there are exceptions. Take watermelon. That is one fruit that continually surprises me for the number of people who gush over how spectacular it is. For me, it usually shows up as filler in a serving of varieties of cut fruit –the item with no taste. I usually find watermelon to be the most underwhelming fruit I encounter. Last night, I had an insight about what it takes for watermelon to earn my praise.

First of all, the sweetness and full-flavor should be a given. Even avowed watermelon lovers should grant me that. But just sweet and flavorful is not enough to win me over. My body needs to be uncomfortably hot, and the watermelon needs to be really, really cold; as cold as possible without being frozen. Anything short of that is just more of the same-old, boring melon. Incredibly cold, sweet, juicy, flavorful watermelon, when I am too hot, is indubitably the best possible fruit experience in the universe.

It was last night, anyway.