WATERMELONS: A PERFECT PLEASURE

I am not very well acquainted with melons, having been raised on a humdrum diet of apples, oranges and bananas. I remember having one or two at friends’ houses, but they never made much impression with their slimy texture and insipid sweetness. As an adult, I never bothered to buy any - until recently. Here in Budapest, heaps of watermelons are piled up outside small grocery shops like cartoon cannonballs. They’re cheaper than water, but incredibly heavy and need to be lugged home separately from any other shopping. There’s no room in the bag for anything else.

Here’s how to eat a watermelon. It’s best enjoyed chilled – this is important - after a tiring day at work, or for breakfast, or having returned from a drinking session, or in the middle of a hot afternoon. Stick a knife into its impressive bulk and cut right through the soft flesh. Then, when it is almost cloven in two, grab the halves and pull them apart with a satisfying crack. Admire the flesh, a perfluence of glowing deep pink incandescent with runny sweetness and glistening like the surface of an iceberg. It’s scattered with jet black seeds.

Repeat procedure until you have a large segment. Then cut round the edge of the pink area, prising the gorgeous fruit away from the skin. And cut into chunks. They’re almost opaque when held to the light. You can imagine the individual crystalline cells. The anticipation is a delight.

Now, plunge in and feel the juices break over your chin, running down and dripping on to the table/ your feet. Deliciously crunchy like a sorbet on first contact, the fruit then collapses on your tongue, bursting into a cool flood which gushes down your grateful throat. For a few minutes you dissolve in a frenzy. It gets a real mauling, and soon you are whimpering with pleasure, and replete with a distended belly.