Watermelon, or the Fruit That Is Mostly Water
At the market in the last weeks of summer, a particular transaction plays out that you can watch anywhere from Andalusia to the Uyghur bazaars of western China, in more or less identical choreography. A customer picks up a watermelon. They do not look at it so much as interrogate it: they heft it, feeling for a heaviness that seems excessive for the size. They turn it over to find the pale patch where it sat on the ground, and judge its colour. And then — the decisive gesture — they knock on it with a bent knuckle, cock their head, and listen, with the expression of a doctor sounding a chest. A good watermelon answers with a deep, hollow, almost woody note. A dull, flat thud means the flesh inside has gone mealy or overripe, and the melon is returned to the pile in mild disgrace. fresh whole and sliced watermelons Nobody entirely agrees on what the knock actually tells you, and I have met sellers from four countries who each explained the acoustics to me with total confidence and ...
