Sniff Around for Melons

Fran Torigian knows how to sell a melon.

When asked how this year’s harvest is progressing, he says, “Let me see, I just brought in a cantaloupe from one of our Huron fields.” After a pause, he’s back. “Boy, is it good. It’s hard to describe exactly what a melon tastes like: This one is sweet, but it’s got that specific melon taste. It’s almost buttery.

“And you know how when you cut open a great melon, you get that smell? If we had a videophone, I could show you what I’m talking about. Maybe we’d need a scratch and sniff phone.”

Of course, Torigian, sales manager at melon grower-shipper DFI Marketing, is in the business of selling melons. And this time of year, he’s particularly busy.

Harvest has begun in the fabled “Westside” growing area that stretches roughly from Huron to Los Banos, embracing the town of Mendota, which once was almost synonymous with California melons.

At the same time, for the next week to week and a half, melons are also being picked in the desert growing areas of western Arizona and the Imperial Valley.

That means there are a lot of melons out there, and that should translate to good prices. Torigian says farmers are getting about 15 cents a pound for cantaloupes and honeydews this week, which should mean supermarket specials in the neighborhood of 25 cents a pound.

There are several ways to pick a great melon. With cantaloupes, pick fruit that is heavy for its size, that has a raised netting, that has no traces of stem left in its navel and, most important, has a robust melon smell.

Honeydews are a little tougher; they don’t have the netting and they are cut from the vine, so the navel doesn’t tell you anything. But they should have a uniformly creamy color, a firm, smooth flesh and a powerfully flowery smell when ripe.

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Among this week’s best buys: berries, grapes, mangoes, peaches, plums and nectarines as well as all the usual mid-summer vegetables, including tomatoes, lettuce, corn, cucumbers and zucchini.

Carolyn Olney of Southland Farmers Market Assn. reports that Art Lange of Honey Crisp farm in Reedley is selling spectacular stone fruit, particularly his Arctic Rose white nectarine and Nectar white peach, at the Santa Monica Wednesday markets.