Melons: From nearby farms to faraway France, the taste of summer is ripe for the picking

Melons are the sirens of summer. Kin to pumpkins, cucumbers and squash, they represent the voluptuous branch of the gourd family. On a hot August day, eating the sweet flesh of these juicy orbs, which range in color from flamboyant reds, greens and oranges to creamy white, refreshes like a dip in a lake.

Available year-round, melons are most in demand in the summertime, and most varieties from California, the nation's premier grower, are at their peak right now. Northwest melons will start appearing this month as well. Melons galore are ripening on vines creeping all over Eastern Washington fields: cantaloupes, Crenshaws, Galias, muskmelons, orange and green honeydews, and watermelons in red, yellow and even orange, just to name a few.

"You can grow a good, sweet melon in the Yakima Valley, just like you can in California," insists Dave Franklin of Washington Harvest Farms in Kirkland, who brings in truckloads of Washington fruit during the summer months. In late August or early September, Franklin hopes to offer melone di pane, or bread melon, an Italian variety being grown for him by a farmer in Eastern Washington using seeds brought from Italy by a friend.

This month and into September, farmers markets are the place to look for vine-ripened specialty melons from Eastern Washington growers like River Farm, Homestead Organic Farm in Quincy and Tonnemaker Family Orchard of Royal City. Varieties include cantaloupes with names like Fast Breaker and Star Headliner, heirloom Sugar Baby watermelons, diminutive French breakfast melons and butterscotch melons, whose juice is almost like syrup.

As if looking good and tasting great weren't enough, melons are low in calories and high in fiber and vitamin C. The orange-fleshed varieties also deliver vitamin A.

How to select a good one

When choosing a melon, forget about shaking it to hear the seeds rattle. Instead, smell it. Ripe melons are fragrant and feel heavy for their size; the flesh often gives slightly when pressed gently at the blossom end. Watermelons should have a yellow patch, not white, where they sat on the ground, and when you tap a whole one, it sort of echoes. Ripe honeydews often have a tacky feel. Ripe cantaloupe has yellow skin showing between the netting.

Most melons don't continue to ripen after they're picked, but whole melons will soften if stored out of the refrigerator. (Cut melons should always be refrigerated.) Though most people like to eat melon very cold, letting it sit at room temperature for a bit brings out the flavor. As with all fruits and vegetables, wash them before cutting.

Melons by variety

Here are some melon varieties to look for and where you are likely to find them.

• Ambrosia: Available at Whole Foods Market. Similar to cantaloupe inside and out, but the flesh is darker orange and richer tasting.

• Butterscotch: Available at farmers markets only. Weighing only a couple of pounds, the orange and green flesh of these buttery, sweet melons is edible all the way to the pale green rind and tastes, some say, like butterscotch.

• Canary (or Juan Canary): Widely available. Looks like a bright yellow, elongated honeydew that's soft, sweet and creamy white on the inside.

• Cantaloupe: Widely available. Orange-fleshed with skin that's closely netted. Shop the farmers markets for unusual hybrids like the deep orange, pungent Harper cantaloupe grown by River Farm. Shoreline Central Market and its sister stores, Poulsbo Central Market and Town & Country Market on Bainbridge Island, are the exclusive purveyors of an organic cantaloupe grown by Gala Springs Farm in Boardman, Ore.

• Casaba: Widely available. Yellow with lightly furrowed skin and often pumpkin-shaped. The creamy white flesh is juicy and sweet with a hint of cucumber.

• Charentais: Sometimes available at Larry's Markets, Queen Anne and Admiral Thriftways. Many believe melons don't get any better than this small, sweet, orange-fleshed French import, and they are willing to pay the price — which hovers around $3.50 per pound.

Charentais melons grown in Mexico, Martinique, Spain and California are less pricey. Charentais-style melons from Eastern Washington are also considerably cheaper, and some say just as good. Look for them at farmers markets.

• Crenshaw (or Cranshaw): Widely available. Smooth, slightly furrowed green or yellow skin. A meaty melon, the light orange flesh has a mildly sweet, faintly spicy flavor.

• Galia: Available at specialty and farmers markets. This very sweet Israeli hybrid is pale green like honeydew inside, pale green to white outside like a cantaloupe with looser netting.

• Honeydew (orange and green fleshed): Widely available. The orange-fleshed version, reputedly an accident of nature that's since been cultivated, has a faint blush to the skin, a sweet fragrance and tastes a lot like its pale green cousin.

• Horn melon: Available at specialty markets. You can't mistake this bright orange spiky melon. Underneath the bumpy surface is sweetly tart, jellylike, emerald flesh.

• Muskmelon: Available at specialty and farmers markets. This highly perishable Eastern Washington melon will be around for a very short time. Looks like a ribbed cantaloupe, but the orange flesh is extremely sweet.

• Pepino: Available at Whole Foods Market. The name of this South American native means cucumber in Spanish. Purple or mauve markings on the skin turn gold and orange when the fruit is ripe.

The sweet, pear-like scent of the orange flesh is almost more alluring than its very mild cantaloupe flavor.

• Persian: Available at specialty and farmers markets. Larger and with a looser netting than a cantaloupe, its deep salmon-colored flesh is firmer and a little more musky.

• Sharlyn (or Sharlin): Available at specialty markets. The netted skin resembles that of an elongated cantaloupe. The sweet, pale orange flesh is similar to a Crenshaw.

• Santa Claus: Widely available. Originally named for its long-keeping qualities, the slightly crisp, juicy, mildly sweet, pale green flesh of this melon has the faintest taste of cucumber. Mottled green and yellow on the outside, it sometimes resembles a very small watermelon.

• Temptation: Available at specialty and farmers markets. A newer variety of smooth melon, the vivid orange and green flesh is very sweet, edible to the rind.

• Watermelon: Widely available, with or without seeds, in basic red. Look for yellow watermelons at specialty and farmers markets. Tonnemaker Family Orchard sells red, yellow and the newest designer shade, pale orange, at virtually every farmers market in the area and at their Bellevue farm stand, 4122 W. Lake Sammamish Parkway S.E.

Providence Cicero can be reached at providencecicero@aol.com.