“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe…”
―Evelyn Waugh, “Brideshead Revisited”
Did you know? The etymology of the word cantaloupe is from the 1700s, from a town named Cantalupo in Sabina in the province of Rieti, on the Sabine Hills of Lazio in Italy. It is the former Papal summer estate near Rome, and some food historians believe it is where melons first were grown in Europe after their introduction from the middle east.
I really like Ontario melons – watermelons especially. Niagara’s cantaloupes are almost ready for picking and C. brought a small early round home to me yesterday. It was lovely and aromatic. A few more days of hot sun and they will be ready for devouring.
He expertly cut it up into pieces for us and we gobbled it down – enough sustenance to get our famished-selves across the Danforth for Pakistani bihari kababs and toasty hot naan.
As we hit the bridge at dusk, I could still smell the sweet stickiness – of the melon, but of the summer sunset too.
It’s August. Oh my.
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