Although our food shopping experience today is somewhat far removed from the real field where produce and grains are grown and gathered, knowing just a little bit about the agricultural process will help you much more easily choose fruit most likely to be perfectly ripe and tasty.
Usually in season from May through September depending on the environment of the state the watermelon is cultivated in, there are a few ways you can choose the sweetest one at the market.
These include selecting a hefty melon to guarantee a pleasingly juicy inside and checking for any indications of rotting. Finding a field spot on the melon—a field spot is the side of the melon that was resting on the ground while it was developing on the vine—is the best approach to ensure ripeness, though.
Should your preferred crop stay on the vine long enough to ripen, the field spot will be either dark yellow or orange. If not, it will be most likely white.
At a summer BBQ, we have all bit into a poor piece of watermelon: a mouthful of mushy, mealy fruit with a too thick peel. Overripe watermelons lose moisture, become dry and somewhat gritty, and this mealiness results.
But you're in for very different if you follow the field spot trick to choose the ideal watermelon. Though the fruit contains roughly 92% water, biting into one should be crisp rather than mushy; a very superb watermelon should be incredibly sweet and juicy.
The rind of a watermelon should not be very thick either; a thinner rind suggests that you have more fruit flesh per melon.