We used to throw a lot of watermelon away.  Some of the old ways of cutting the beast left it difficult and messy to eat, and didn’t providing for those time when you just want a little bit of watermelon instead of a whole slice.

I needed something to write about in my blog today, so I am floating up this bit of fluff because I have pictures, and this is the kind of stuff some people like to see on the Internet.  So, let’s get started.

Whenever I start to carve a watermelon, I think of my grandfather, Fritz.  He had a definite and predictable way of starting the process.  The first step is that if there is a stem, it should be cut off.  No reason here, just  the first part of making sure it is dead.  Then, for the next step, you kill it.

To kill a watermelon, you thrust the knife deep into the heart.  Now this is where I break off from the tradition that I was taught.  Fritz would always then split the watermelon down the middle and cut out that part right in the middle that has no seeds, he called it the heart.  Removing the heart was the last step of killing it, then it was cut into slices with the rind still attached.  This method meant that usually the only time watermelon wasn’t wasted was when there were enough people around to eat the whole thing at one sitting.

We start by cutting off the stem end, then cut off the opposite end.  This gives you a melon that is flat on the top and bottom, much easier to work with.  This method works best with round watermelons.  When you have a elongated melon, cut it in half to give you your first flat edge. The proceed the same as with a round melon.  The idea here is to turn the melon into a cube.

Once you have cut off all the rinds you will have a cube.  By cutting it in this way, you leave very little melon on the rind.  You can scoop it out with a spoon or knife if you want, but it is that melon that is so close to the rind that it isn’t that tasty anyway.  Not much waste, and what you waste isn’t the lower quality.

You can trim off the corners and it should leave you will rind-free watermelon.  Now you can cut the length and the width, but don’t cut all the way to the bottom, leave the last half inch or inch in tact to hold it all together.

Now turn the melon over on one of the sides and now you can dice the melon into bite size cubes  by cutting it across the slices you have already cut.

Eat what you want now, and throw the rest in a container with a lid that you can throw in the fridge.  Now you always have a tasty and healthy snack just waiting in the fridge for you to eat a healthy option.

Put it at the front of the shelf on the fridge so you have to move past it to grab for something else that might be less healthy.

There you go, much less waste because it is easy to eat and you only need to take what you want at the time.  Make sure you take the rind out to the compost pile.  No sense wasting that, your garden will love it next year.

PEACE!

KT

Day 35