HOW TO PICK A GREAT WATERMELON: MORE ADVICE

In this week’s Deseret News column, I mentioned the difficulties of picking a good watermelon.

One of my readers, Dan Perkins,  e-mailed me with this suggestion:

“It’s MIDDLE C on the piano.  Hold the watermelon in your arms like you were burping a baby and pat it and listen. 99.9% accurate.  Tap on middle C on a piano until you have it seared onto your brain.  Pat the watermelon & match it up.  Then when you get back home with the watermelon, tap on middle C again and pat the watermelon to see if you got it right.

Then slice some off and taste test to see if you got it right.  Prove it to yourself.  Below middle C is too ripe, dull thud.  Above middle C is still green.  Not yet ripe.

If you don’t have a piano, you’ll just have to do it on the piano at church or somewhere that does have a piano & memorize that sound.  With the first watermelons of summer you can go on the low side of C and in the late fall go on the high side of C.

It took me years to get it figured out just right.”

I’m not good at remembering musical notes.  I’m thinking next season I’ll program the sound of middle C into my phone and replay it when I’m buying watermelon!