Food - Drink
Why You Should Pay Attention To The Tail
Of Your Watermelon
By KATIE LENHARDT
Few things bring disappointment to the barbeque like biting into a flavorless, mushy wedge of watermelon. You've seen folks conducting all sorts of ripeness-testing rituals at the grocery store and probably received plenty of old wives' tale advice from self-proclaimed expert melon pickers.
In addition to a uniform visual appearance, fruity aroma, and hefty weight, Master Class suggests going right to the root, or stem, of the ripeness issue. When a watermelon is harvested too early, the tail will remain green, indicating that the inner fruit has not reached its full flavor potential.
When the tail is brown and dried out, the opposite is true of the fruit inside, and you can feel confident that you are about to enjoy a juicy and sweet watermelon. If other methods seem unapproachable, checking the tail of the watermelon may be one of the easiest methods to identify this delicious fruit at its peak.