Scrolling through “what I eat in a week” diaries instead of working, I found one from the New York fashion designer Somsack Sikhounmuong, and was captivated by his melons. Sikhounmuong bought two exquisite specimens for, brace yourself, $50 each. His doorman assumed there was a mix-up with his shopping: “It’s missing a lot of stuff because the bill is like $100, but there are only two melons in here.” Sikhounmuong sheepishly confessed, but had no regrets: “They are incredible, so sweet and so orange.”
I almost relate. Despite my horror at the way even basic foods have become so unaffordable, I descend into melon madness every summer, craving an orange Charentais, intensely fragrant and juicy. I inherited it from my French in-laws, who serve them at every summer meal with a ritual call – “How’s the melon?” – and response (hopefully “tasty”, “fragrant”, or “really sweet”). The quest for a good melon is a French national sport, assisted by an official minimum sugar percentage of 10%. Specialist fruiterers ask, gravely, when exactly you intend to eat the melon to ensure the one they select hits its absolute peak then, and charge near-New York prices. They’ve always been precious: in 1864, Alexandre Dumas donated his books to “melon town” Cavaillon’s library in return for a measly 12 melons a year for life.
I brought four back home when we visited my French mother-in-law recently, paying a punchy €4.95 each, but I should have ponied up for more; my melon-less existence has already become intolerable. North Yorkshire’s are unyielding cucumber-adjacent balls of sadness, and I should know because I’ve sniffed the skin of every melon within a mile of here.
I’ve had countless melon conversations with my similarly obsessed best friend – our chat history indicates we discuss them twice weekly each summer. She’s tipped me off on possible dealers for my next trip to London, and I’ve got a tab open on my laptop with a £9.95 melon in it. It’s grown by a man called Oscar in the Mantua floodplains, and “picked only when the leaves are golden and the skin is almost bursting with flavour”. I can almost smell it through the screen. Help.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
