THE CHATTER

‘At the age of eight, I didn’t know much, but I knew salting a watermelon wasn’t normal’

The late July watermelon was so overripe that a rose coloured pool of juice had soaked through to the bottom of the platter. As I carried it to to my father sitting on the balcony, the juice poured over the edges and spilled down my arms.

My dad picked up a slice and took a thoughtful bite. “Needs salt,” he said.

My father, who had burned his taste buds to a fine crisp by smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years, was famous for thinking that everything needed salt. After coming to the conclusion that putting salt on fruit was, if not completely wrong, then certainly weird, I was overcome with a sense of relief that Laura S. had decided not to come over for a play date that afternoon. I didn’t want any of my friends to see my strange and extravagant parent attempting to put salt on fruit. At the age of eight, I didn’t know much, but I knew salting watermelon is not how normal people ate it.

“Go get the salt would you?” My father asked.

Reluctantly, I retrieved the saltshaker and watched him pour a cliff of sodium into his palm, christening each slice with a generous pinch. Before the crystals could fully absorb into my sweaty slice I took a bite, then another.

The salt turned the watermelon into a foreign object; amplifying the sweetness to a point where each hit of glucose tasted so strong it should have been forbidden. The thin crunchy membrane of half-dissolved crystals made each bite more addictive than the previous.

I remember wondering whether or not people were allowed to eat watermelon like this, and if they were, why wasn’t everyone doing it.

I have since come to realize that assaulting fruit with sodium exaggerates the flavours to a point where the fruit begins to resemble a sort-of make-shift, chewable margarita. In Mexico, sliced fruit is emboldened with salt, chilies and lime because of this.

Put simply, seasoned fruit tastes better. And if something tastes better, why shouldn’t we allow ourselves the pleasure of enjoying it?

In the years since my discovery, an assortment of savoury watermelon dishes like watermelon feta salads have become increasingly popular. But nothing satisfies a summer craving quite like the combination of melon and salt.

The recipe, if you can call it that, is simple enough to prepare on even the hottest of days. Yet the sweet-salty flavour combination is unexpected enough to remain exciting. If watermelon is the platonic ideal of summer food, then salted watermelon gives new life to the season’s standby flavour.