Weapon, Alien or Melon?

            I absolutely love fruit.  It is a close second for my favorite food group so for this assignment of tackling the produce aisle and picking something unknown I decided I wanted to be choose something that would be more adventurous.  This seems like it would be difficult.  This is fruit we are talking about, but boy did I find an adventure in the produce aisle: the horned melon, something that is not a standard part of an American diet.  The orange peel speckled with yellow would be beautiful if it was not literally horned and sharp.  I would not be surprised if this fruit had been a cause of death at some point. Honestly, it is a terrifying fruit, but how bad can it be?  The skin is hard and smooth so it is easy to assume that you have to cut into it and then eat what is on the inside.  Also the outside has no smell and the previously mentioned weapons surrounding the fruit make me hope that is not what I am supposed to eat.  I did not have a knife but my car key worked quite nicely; it was just a little more work and lot messier.  As I was hacking the melon put up a fight, squirting me with a slimy green juice and then I was even more hesitant then before.  I conquered the fruit and now I was nervous.  

The inside is a beautiful lime green that contrasts with the orange skin that you can still see.  The meat of the melon consists of little lime green, jelly-like, teardrop shaped sacks.  Inside each of these little things is a seed that is floating around in the drop.  It is really quite beautiful and strange, so I do the most logical thing: I eat a whole bunch of these little guys.  That was a really bad idea.  The texture is slimy and with a whole bunch in my mouth it felt as if they were wriggling around.  I was eventually victorious when I discovered that it was a mixture of sucking the jelly-like substance and chewing that was required.  I ate the seeds as well because all that wriggling jelly needed a little crunch!  The melon itself is very refreshing I think it might be because of the acidity in the individual sacks.  It was honestly pretty tasteless though.  It had a little bit of a grassy flavor that lingered in your mouth after you ate it but really it was more refreshing then flavorful, and also kind of fun!  After the first round I wanted to try again, but to get at the next layer of fruit I had to poke through this membrane that separated different sections of the meat inside.  I had kept it at room temperature before digging into it initially so I decided to try it refrigerated, after cutting it I placed it in a zip-lock bag and into the fridge.  The next day I tried it once more and found that it was truly refreshing.  The best description is on a hot day when you greedily suck on ice cubes, it was a lot like that.  The coolness mixed with its refreshing sensation made it the perfect way to cool down on a hot day, well besides that grassy flavor.  I probably will never buy this creature again.  It was quite expensive $5.99 for only 1, but it was really fun to try and I recommend trying it if you ever want an adventure that you can safely have at home.