Ugly fruit can be downright delicious
With holidays upon us thoughts turn to food, food that is rich, and spicy, food that is sweet and hearty. And food that is crude and ugly. Yes, the most delicious food is indeed crude; and ugly. Start with crude, there is an Italian dry-cured ham sliced razor thin and wrapped around melon. The salted, dried ham is uncooked, what Italians call prosciutto crudo. And what would crude or uncooked prosciutto be without its soul-mate, a heritage cantaloupe or musk melon of Italy, “Brutto ma Buono” or “Ugly but good.” This melon has deeply ribbed green-and-yellow splotched skin. But it is when you cut into the four-pound melons, and smell possibly the strongest, sweetest aroma of any cantaloupe. The dark orange flesh has made this a favorite since at least the early 1600s.
Like all cantaloupe Brutto ma Buono does best in warm soil above 70 degrees F, usually around the time your peonies bloom. The soil should have a pH between 6.0 to 6.5. You can heat up the soil even more by covering the bed with black plastic. Good melons need a lot of fertilizer, so dig in four to six inches of well-rotted manure or compost. Plant seeds one-half-inch deep directly in your garden, Sow six to eight seeds in each hill and space the hills at least three feet apart. Once the seedlings emerge, thin to just three plants per hill.
You can also start Brutto ma Buono melons indoors around three weeks before the last frost. Sow three or four seeds per small peat pots, keep the soil moist but not soggy, and if possible, use a heat mat for bottom heat. Harden off your plants by slowly exposing them to the outdoors for several hours each day. Bring them back indoors at night. Transplant pot and all into the garden after soil is over 70 degrees F.
Once melons are beginning to ripen, resist the temptation to prune or pinch off the ends of the vines. Instead, leave as many leaves as you can to produce the sugars that sweeten the melons. That said, the fewer melons per vine, the sweeter each melon will be. After around late August, pinch off all blossoms that start to develop because they won’t have time to develop before frost. Seeds are available from many specialty seed companies such as Italian Seed and Tool (Italian Seed and Tool, 743 Shore Road, Hollister, CA 95023-9427; phone 831-637-241, online at www.italianseedandtool.com), or Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., 2278 Baker Creek Road, Mansfield, MO 65704; phone 417-924-8917; at rareseeds.com. Save your own Brutto ma Buono seeds by choosing a melon that is absolutely ripe. You can still eat the melon, just save the seeds first. Start by scooping out seeds and and putting them into a sieve and running the seeds under warm water. Spread rinsed seeds out on wax paper to dry for several days. Keep seeds out of direct sun and away from high heat. Once seeds are dried, save in marked envelopes.
Plan now to grow your own Brutto ma Buono, the ugly but good melon, because beauty is only skin deep, but ugly can be delicious.
