When buying cantaloupes I always do the “scratch and sniff” test. Usually when I get home and cut the melon open I find that scratching and sniffing didn’t work for me. The melon is never ripe enough. Still, I persist in scratching and sniffing.
A few days ago, while shopping at Kroger, I was picking up several melons and going through the “scratch-n-sniff” routine. After a few minutes, I noticed a lady in a wheelchair looking at me. I smiled and said hi to her and continued scratching and sniffing. Finally she got my attention and said, “Do you want to know how to tell if these are ripe or not?” Naturally, I said yes.
She picked up a melon, held it next to her head and shook the fire out of it. Then she asked me to bend down and listen while she shook it. Doing so, I heard it rattling like it had marbles inside. She told me that the rattling noise was the seeds shaking. If you can hear them shake, then the melon will be ripe.
Guess what…when I got home…ripe melon! WoW! Next time you see me buying cantaloupe at Kroger I’ll be shaking the melons instead of scratch-n-sniff!
I used to work with my uncle at a food market and heres some other fruit ripeness tricks!
Pineapples: Firm (not hard or soft) with a sweet smell (not vinegary or no odor). You can test if it is ripe by picking a leaf off of it, if it is hard to pull off it is not ripe yet.
Strawberries: Smell is a large factor. Any signs of mildew or foulness is a bad sign, instead look for sweet smelling. The color should be red from top to bottom, stay away from green or white topped/bottomed strawberries, they where likely picked too early. Dont mind the shape of the strawberry, it has no impact on how it tastes!
Watermelon: Tap the outsides and listen for a hollow sound (if its ripe), look for the field spot on the bottom side (the side it layed on while growing), if it is yellow it is likely ripe, if it is white it is likely not.
Avocados: Definitely a hard one! If it is squishy it is too ripe and thus bad, i usually just buy firm avocados and let them ripen sitting next to fruit, the ripe feel is one that is not hard and not soft, more on the hard side.
Enjoy 😀
Ripe cantaloupe is the best fruit in the world to me. I can eat cantaloupe in the summer, spring, fall and winter; it really doesn’t matter to me at all. I usually use cantaloupe for my skin by eating it without the seed and add a little salt but I’ve been trying this new face mask But for one, I’ve never heard of the scratch and sniff method. I was taught by my great great- grandfather to squeeze the sides first to make sure its not too soft and just firm perfectly. Second, then you shake the cantaloupe to hear the seeds moving around and that is how you found out if its a ripe cantaloupe.
This is very useful information! Cantaloupes are such a delicacy but somehow we end up buying ones that either are not ripe yet, or have started going bad from the inside. I do not have any experience with the ole scratch and sniff method or the shaking, I usually thump them like a watermelon or get the heaviest one. There’s also a trick that my mother was told by a fellow grocery shopper about picking ripe pineapples: if you can pick out the top center leaf, it is ripe! Oh the joys of fruit picking.