Carving up fun with summer fruit
My 8- year- old daughter came across a photo of a watermelon fruit basket the other day and thought it was the coolest thing she had ever seen. I wondered for a second if we’d made a big mistake in our latest issue: We produced a whole story about fun things to do with watermelon, and not one of them involves carving it into a basket and filling it with melon balls. I honestly thought the idea was so played out that no one would get excited about it anymore.
I should have known better: People love a watermelon hack, of any kind. Food Network posted a video on Facebook last year demonstrating how to turn a watermelon into a keg, and it has 160 million views and counting ( you can see for yourself and add to that number at foodnetwork. com/ watermelonkeg).
I can’t imagine what the numbers would have been like for the watermelon basket if the internet had been around when it was invented. I’ve searched everywhere for the story of its origin, in an effort to give credit to the genius who thought of it, but no one seems to have the answer — not even the National Watermelon Promotion Board. “This has us stumped!” said communications director Stephanie Barlow.
She also searched the archives of her sister organization, the National Watermelon Association, and couldn’t find any details about the birth of basket carving there, either.
Inquiring minds can find plenty of information about the history of fruit carving in general: Many researchers believe the art form dates all the way back to China’s Tang Dynasty ( AD 618); however, I don’t think the basket pictured below showed up on any emperor’s table. Best I can tell, Americans first started carving watermelon baskets in the early 1900s.
Our deputy editor, Jessica Dodell- Feder, found a 1908 edition of the monthly food magazine Table Talk in which a Washington, D. C, reader wrote in about something incredible she’d encountered at a party: “The watermelon was served in a way that none of us had seen before. A large platter was brought in, and on it was a watermelon basket.… The melon had been cut with a sharp knife into a basket with a handle, the pulp taken out with a spoon and chilled on ice before serving.”
The trend must have taken a while to catch on pre- internet, because no one seems to remember watermelon baskets becoming a popular party trick until at least the midcentury. My mom says she got her first glimpse of one at a church potluck in Chester, Pa., in the late 1960s, and like my daughter, she thought it was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. ( She proceeded to make them for the next 20 years.)
My aunt first laid eyes on one at her bridal shower in 1967. What’s most interesting about these two accounts is that both my mom and aunt, who are now in their 70s, remember exactly where they were when they saw a watermelon basket for the first time. Knowing this, I wish so much that my daughter had never found that picture so I could break out a real watermelon basket this summer— and completely blow her mind.
PEOPLE LOVE A WATERMELON HACK, OF ANY KIND.