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It is the second week of August. You walk into the grocery store, and the bin near the front is piled high with cantaloupes — round ones, oval ones, some pale green, some sandy beige. Five dollars each. Six dollars for the bigger ones. You pick one up, you turn it over in your hands, and you have no idea what you are looking for. You grab the one that looks the prettiest, hope for the best, carry it home in your arms. Wednesday evening, you cut it open in front of your family. The flesh is pale orange — not the deep coral color you remember from your grandmother's kitchen. The first bite is watery, almost flavorless. Five dollars on the counter, half of it going in the compost.
There is no luck in picking a cantaloupe. There never was. Every farmer's wife in this country once knew how to walk up to a pile of melons at a roadside stand and pick the sweetest one in the bin every single time. They had a small set of tests they did before they ever paid a dollar — and not one of those tests is hard, and not one of them costs anything.
In this video, I walk you through the 5 tests for pickin
It is the second week of August. You walk into the grocery store, and the bin near the front is piled high with cantaloupes — round ones, oval ones, some pale green, some sandy beige. Five dollars each. Six dollars for the bigger ones. You pick one up, you turn it over in your hands, and you have no idea what you are looking for. You grab the one that looks the prettiest, hope for the best, carry it home in your arms. Wednesday evening, you cut it open in front of your family. The flesh is pale orange — not the deep coral color you remember from your grandmother's kitchen. The first bite is watery, almost flavorless. Five dollars on the counter, half of it going in the compost.
There is no luck in picking a cantaloupe. There never was. Every farmer's wife in this country once knew how to walk up to a pile of melons at a roadside stand and pick the sweetest one in the bin every single time. They had a small set of tests they did before they ever paid a dollar — and not one of those tests is hard, and not one of them costs anything.
In this video, I walk you through the 5 tests for pickin
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00:00It is the second week of August. You walk into the grocery store and the bin near the front is
00:06piled high with cantaloupes. Round ones, oval ones, some pale green, some sandy beige. Five
00:14dollars each. Six dollars for the bigger ones. You pick one up. You turn it over in your hands
00:21and you have no idea what you are looking for. You give it a sniff. You feel the weight. You
00:28set it
00:28back down and pick up another. The young clerk passing by does not know either, so you grab the
00:36one that looks the prettiest, hope for the best, carry it home in your arms. Wednesday evening,
00:42you cut it open in front of your family. The flesh is pale orange, not the deep coral color you
00:50remember
00:50from your grandmother's kitchen. The white inside the rind is too thick. The first bite is watery,
00:58almost flavorless, with that faint pumpkin-like aftertaste that means the melon was picked too
01:05early. Five dollars on the counter, half of it going in the compost. You feed what is left to the
01:12chickens because the children will not eat it. Now I want you to sit with this. There is no luck
01:20in picking a cantaloupe. There never was. Every farmer's wife in this country once knew exactly
01:28how to walk up to a pile of melons at a roadside stand and pick the sweetest one in the
01:34bin every
01:35single time. They had a small set of tests they did before they ever paid a dollar, and not one
01:43of those
01:44tests is hard, and not one of them costs anything, and any person watching this video can learn the
01:52whole set in five minutes and never again bring home a watery, flavorless melon.
02:00I am Elias Yoder. I am Amish, and I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. My wife Esther grew up
02:08picking melons at the produce stand with her mother. Her mother learned from her mother before her,
02:14and just like we did with the watermelon video, if you missed that one, it is the natural companion to
02:21today, and the seven tests for picking a sweet watermelon are still the most important kitchen skill
02:28I know. Today I am going to walk you through the five tests for picking a sweet cantaloupe.
02:36The color, the netting, the stem, the weight, and the smell. Pick up any cantaloupe in any grocery store,
02:45do these five tests in under a minute, and you will know, before you ever put it in your cart,
02:52whether you are bringing home sweet juice or watery disappointment. One thing before I get into the
03:00tests. The old methods I share on this channel, there is too much of it to fit in any single
03:07video,
03:07so I put the whole of it together in a book at my website, EliasYoder.com, for the folks who
03:15want
03:15the long version. I will not mention it again here. If you want it, you know where to look.
03:23Now let me show you how the old folks picked their cantaloupes. Test number one, the color of the rind
03:30under the netting. This is the first thing your eye should land on when you pick up a cantaloupe.
03:37Look at the color of the rind itself, not the rough raised netting, but the smooth skin underneath it.
03:46A ripe cantaloupe has a rind color that is creamy beige, sandy gold, or pale tan, sometimes with a
03:55faint blush of yellow. The green is gone. The melon ripened on the vine long enough for the chlorophyll
04:03in the rind to break down, and what is left underneath is the sandy, buttery color of a ripe
04:10cantaloupe. An unripe cantaloupe is green, or grayish green, under the netting. The chlorophyll has not
04:19had time to break down. That melon was picked too early. The flesh inside will be pale, watery,
04:27and almost flavorless. I will tell you a thing the supermarket signs do not tell you. There are
04:35two main types of cantaloupe in American grocery stores, and knowing the difference helps you pick
04:41well. The first is the western cantaloupe, round, prettier, more uniform, with a smoother appearance
04:50and a paler rind. These are the ones you see piled in the grocery store year-round, shipped in from
04:57California or Arizona. They look prettier on the shelf, but their flavor is often milder, and they
05:04have less of the deep musky aroma. The second is the eastern cantaloupe, also called muskmelon. Uglier,
05:12more oblong, sometimes with brown spots, with deeper grooved netting. These are usually grown in the
05:19east and midwest, sold at farm stands and farmers markets, and they are the ones with the truly
05:25deep, sweet flavor, and the musky aroma you remember from childhood. If you have a choice between the two,
05:32and you can find eastern cantaloupe at a farm stand, pick that one every time. The grocery store western
05:38ones are fine. They look prettier, and they last longer in the kitchen, but the eastern muskmelon is the
05:45one that tastes like a true cantaloupe should. Either way, the rind color under the netting tells you
05:51almost everything. Beige and sandy and golden, yes. Green and grayish, no. Test number two, the netting.
06:01The rough raised pattern that covers the cantaloupe rind is called netting. It is the rind's signature,
06:09written across the surface of the melon during the weeks of ripening on the vine.
06:13A ripe cantaloupe has thick, prominent, raised netting. You can run your finger across it and
06:20feel every ridge, rough, three-dimensional, like fine cord laid down across the rind.
06:27An unripe cantaloupe has thin, faint, almost smooth netting, sometimes barely raised at all.
06:34The rind was still growing when the melon was picked, and the netting did not have time to fully
06:39develop. That melon will be flavorless inside. This is one of the tests most modern shoppers
06:46skip entirely. They look at the netting, and they see only the rough pattern, and pay no mind to whether
06:53it is heavy and prominent, or thin and slight. But the netting is the rind's record of how long the
07:00melon
07:01stayed on the vine. Thick, prominent netting means a long, full ripening. Thin, faint netting means the farmer
07:09with the knife picked it too soon. When you walk through a pile of cantaloupes, run your hand across
07:15the netting of each one. The ones with the rough, raised, prominent netting are the ones the vine had
07:21time to finish. Test number three, the stem end and the principle of full slip. This is the test that
07:29separates a careful shopper from a hopeful one. Turn the cantaloupe so you can see the spot where the
07:35stem was attached, the top end of the melon opposite the blossom end. What you are looking for is a
07:41clean,
07:42concave indent, a smooth, round depression where the stem used to be, with no piece of stem still
07:49attached. When a cantaloupe ripens on the vine, the plant itself forms a separation layer between the
07:55fruit and the stem. The melon is no longer being fed by the vine. At the moment of true ripeness,
08:02the melon detaches from the vine with the gentlest tug, sometimes with no tug at all, just falling
08:08away on its own. The farmers and gardeners call this full slip. A melon that came off the vine in
08:16full
08:16slip leaves behind a clean, concave indent at the stem end. That is what you want to see. Stick your
08:23finger in the indent. It should feel slightly cupped, like a small bowl. An unripe cantaloupe,
08:30one the farmer picked early with a knife or by force, will either have a piece of stem still attached,
08:36a rough, torn edge, or a flat surface where the stem was cut. That melon did not separate on its
08:43own.
08:43The vine was still feeding it when it was picked. The flesh inside will be underdeveloped. This is
08:50the test the source video and the produce farmers themselves use most. Full slip. Clean, concave
08:58indent at the top means the melon was vine ripened. No slip, jagged edge, or attached stem stub means picked
09:06early. That single test alone will eliminate most of the disappointing cantaloupes in any grocery store
09:13bin. Before I go on to the last two tests, let me pause for a moment. If you want to
09:19lower bills,
09:20waste less, repair more, stretch groceries, and run a steadier home, join our Amish home saving system
09:28and community. You will get the lessons, home saving challenges, and a place to ask Esther and me
09:34questions whenever you get stuck. The link is in the description. Now, the last two tests. The first is the
09:43one
09:43most shoppers know about, but get wrong. The second is the one almost nobody checks, and it is the most
09:50important of all. Test number four, the weight. Pick the cantaloupe up, heft it, then pick up a second
09:58cantaloupe of the same size and heft that one too. A ripe cantaloupe should feel heavier than you expect
10:06for its size. The flesh inside is dense with sugar and water. A ripe cantaloupe is about 90% water
10:14by
10:14weight, and all of that water is what gives it its weight. Heavy for its size is good. A light
10:22cantaloupe,
10:23one that feels almost airy in your hands for how big it looks, has lost water. Either it was picked
10:30too early and never finished filling out, or it sat in the store too long and dried out. Pale, mealy,
10:38watery, disappointing flesh either way. This test is hard to do by yourself unless you have something to
10:45compare against. That is why you pick up two cantaloupes of similar size and compare them in your
10:52hands. The heavier one of the two is almost always the better one. Esther taught me this years ago at
10:59the farm stand, and it has not failed me yet. If you want one more small test that goes alongside
11:06the
11:06weight, the thump test works for cantaloupes too, though a little different from watermelons. Hold the
11:13melon up and tap it gently with your knuckles. A ripe cantaloupe makes a low, dull, deep sound, like
11:21tapping on a fist held in front of your chest. An unripe one makes a higher, hollow, brighter sound,
11:29like tapping on an empty cardboard box. Listen for the deep, dull thud. Once you have heard the
11:36difference between a ripe melon's deep, low note and an unripe one's bright, hollow ring, your ear knows it.
11:45Test number five, and this is the most important of all five tests, the smell. Bring the cantaloupe up to
11:53your nose. Put your nose right against the blossom end of the melon, the soft, round end opposite from
12:00the stem, the end that was the bottom of the flower before the melon grew. Take a slow, deep sniff.
12:08A ripe
12:09cantaloupe has an unmistakable sweet, fruity, musky aroma, exactly the smell you remember from your
12:17grandmother's kitchen on a summer afternoon. You can smell it through the rind. In fact, a truly ripe
12:25eastern muskmelon can fill the whole room with its aroma once you bring it inside. That is where the word
12:32muskmelon comes from, the musk, the deep, sweet perfume of the ripe fruit. If you press gently on
12:41the blossom end with your thumb as you smell, the soft give there releases more of the aroma.
12:48This is also a small bonus test. A slight spring under your thumb at the blossom end is another sign
12:55of ripeness. A hard, unyielding blossom end means unripe. If you sniff the melon and you smell nothing
13:04at all, no aroma, just the faint vegetable smell of any unripe fruit, that melon is not ready to eat.
13:12Set it back. If you sniff and the smell is unpleasant, sour, acidic, fermented, or like nail polish remover,
13:22that melon is over-ripe and starting to spoil. Also set it back. The smell you want is sweet, musky,
13:32perfumed, and unmistakable. Once you have smelled a truly ripe eastern muskmelon, you will never again
13:39confuse a ripe one with an unripe one. The nose knows. I will tell you one more thing about the
13:47smell test that the grocery stores hope you do not know. Cantaloupes do not get sweeter after they are
13:55picked. They will get softer. They will get juicier in texture. But they will not get any sweeter than
14:02they were the day the farmer pulled them from the vine. That means the cantaloupes smell at the grocery
14:08store is the same as its smell at your kitchen table. If it smells unimpressive in the bin, it will
14:15taste unimpressive when you cut it open. This is one of the most important things to understand
14:21about buying cantaloupes. You cannot ripen one at home into something better. The sweetness you smell
14:28in the store is the sweetness you eat in the kitchen. So smell it before you pay for it. The
14:34nose decides.
14:36Now I want to take a moment because here is where it all comes together. Look at what we have
14:42just
14:42walked through. Five small tests. The color of the rind under the netting. Creamy beige and sandy gold,
14:51not green. The netting itself. Thick, prominent, raised, not thin and faint. The stem end. Clean,
15:00concave indent from full slip, not a stub or a flat cut. The weight. Heavier than expected for the size,
15:09with a deep, low thud when you tap it. And the smell. Sweet, musky, perfumed at the blossom end.
15:17The most important test of all. Walk up to a pile of cantaloupes at any farm stand or grocery store
15:25in
15:25this country. Spend a minute going through these five tests on the candidates. You will not bring home
15:32another bad cantaloupe for the rest of your life. You will walk past the pale, green-skinned, thin-netted,
15:40stem-attached, light, smell-less ones that everyone else is buying, and you will pick out the sandy,
15:47golden, thick-netted, full-slip, heavy, sweet-musky perfumed ones that the old farmer's wives have always
15:56quietly known how to find. And here is what I want you to know about why this knowledge faded. There
16:03is no money in teaching folks how to pick a sweet cantaloupe. The store does not benefit from a
16:10careful shopper. They would rather sell you the underripe melon for the same five dollars as the
16:16perfect one and not have you know the difference. The supermarket chains do not run commercials telling
16:23you to look at the rind color or check the stem end, because then half their inventory would sit
16:30in the bin until the end of the week. So the knowledge slowly stopped being passed down from
16:36grandmother to mother, from mother to daughter, from farmer to shopper, and a whole nation now stands in
16:43the produce aisle picking cantaloupes at random and hoping. You do not have to hope. The tests work. The
16:52vine, the sun, the bees, and the earth left their fingerprints on every cantaloupe you will ever
16:59pick up. Read the fingerprints and you will eat sweet melon every August in your house from now on.
17:08The honest math is plain. A family that buys two cantaloupes a week through July, August, and September,
17:15about 24 cantaloupes per season, at five dollars a piece, is spending 120 dollars per summer on
17:24cantaloupes. If half of those come home watery or flavorless and end up in the compost, and that is
17:31what happens in most American households, the family is paying for 60 dollars of cantaloupe and eating
17:38maybe 40 dollars of it. The other 20 dollars goes to the chickens. Once you know the five tests, every
17:47cantaloupe you bring home is sweet. That same 120 dollars buys 24 good melons instead of 12. You get
17:57twice the cantaloupe for the same grocery bill because you stopped throwing half of them away. Run the tests,
18:05save the money, eat the sweet juicy ones, and never bring home a bad melon again. So here is what
18:14I want
18:14you to do. This week walk into your grocery store or to a farm stand if there is one near
18:20you, and walk
18:22through a pile of cantaloupes doing the five tests on each candidate. Pick up two or three. Compare them in
18:30your hands. Look at the rind color under the netting. Feel the netting for thickness. Check the stem end for
18:38a clean, concave indent. Feel the weight in your hand. And then smell the blossom end. Slow, deep, careful.
18:48Pick the best one. Bring it home, cut it open the next day, and let your family taste the difference.
18:57Once they have tasted what a properly picked cantaloupe is supposed to taste like, deep orange
19:03flesh, sugar sweet, juicy, perfumed with that musky aroma the way cantaloupe was always meant to taste,
19:11they will never let you bring home a bad one again. And the children will start doing the tests with
19:18you
19:18the next time at the store. That is how the knowledge comes back. Tell me in the comments below, which
19:25of
19:25the five tests had you never used before? The full slip? The netting? The smell? And if your mother or
19:32your grandmother had her own way of picking a melon at the market, her own little secret test we did
19:37not
19:37cover, share it. The little family tricks are exactly the kind of knowledge that gets lost
19:43when nobody writes them down. I read every single one. Next time, since we have been speaking of how
19:49to read the produce you bring home, I am going to show you the old way of picking a sweet
19:54pineapple,
19:55the leaf pull test, the smell at the base, the color, the eyes, and the small signs the grocery store
20:02does
20:02not want you to know how to read. It is the natural next video in our How to Pick series
20:07after
20:08watermelon and cantaloupe. Subscribe so you do not miss it. Until then, look for the sandy gold rind,
20:15the thick raised netting, the clean concave indent at the stem, and the deep musky perfume at the blossom
20:22end. And remember that the vine, the sun, and the bees wrote a love letter on every good cantaloupe
20:28they ever made. You just have to know how to read it.