Horny Melons

I’ll admit it. I am a self-professed foodie, a shameless gastronome, an amateur epicure. At times I fancy myself to be the next Jeffrey Steingarten or Steven A. Shaw, two (of many) prominent lawyer turned food critics. It must be amazing to be paid to write about foods you’ve been paid to eat, not to mention the places you have to go to eat the food, and the people you meet along the way, including those who cook your food. It’s a hobo’s wet dream. Okay, you’d have to be a pretty literate hobo with a decently discerning palette, but still… Come on. How many other careers can provide you with such a sensually satisfying job description?

As a Malaysian, I had the good fortune of growing up in a country that lives to eat, not eats to live. To say that food in Malaysia is smorgasbord-like is to say that India is made up of a fair few Indians. In Kuala Lumpur, my city, if your desired gustatory delight has a name, you’d be sure to find it. Heck, even if it doesn’t have a name, you’d find it. But quality is not necessarily a focus of Malaysian eating habits. Maggi, in particular has an obscene amount of consumers – mostly starving students, fresh law graduates and performing arts practitioners. Okay, that may be a generalisation based on someone I know fairly well, but you get the point.

Thus I must admit that my obsessive interest in food is a fairly recent development, the consequence of a chance employment at the only five-star hotel in Cardiff, Wales, as a Commis Chef. But don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved food. The only difference is that before all I cared about was eating it, but nowadays I am genuinely and passionately predisposed to learning about it, where it comes from, how it is prepared, the chemistry and science behind it, as well as the artistry that goes into it. If ever opportunities arise to sample anything new, exotic, or weird, you can be sure that I would instantaneously morph into the guy who was first in line for the Star Wars Episode I premiere three days away, complete with camping bag and plentiful supply of Maggi noodles Russian Caviar and Fennel Sour Cream Blinis, eagerly looking forward to experience the Holy Grill. Just like the Kiwano.

Imagine my delight and irrational hyper-excitement as I was walking in the local supermarket looking for a cucumber to go into my raita for the night’s Indian-themed dinner feast when I chanced upon a funky, spiky fruit in bright orange with beautiful yellow fractal-like swirls all over. There was no item description to be found, but on the humble but visually all-so-attractive food was a small oval sticker with the words “N.Z. Kiwano horned melon” printed on it.

The horned melon, cucumis metuliferus, also called Melano, African horned cucumber or melon, jelly melon, hedged gourd, English tomato, or Kiwano, is a vine of the cucurbitaceae (gourd) family. African in origin, once native only to the region of the Kalahari desert, but is today grown in California and New Zealand, it is cultivated for its fruit, which looks like an oval melon with horns: 2 to 4 inches long, light green until maturity when it turns gorgeous orange, having distinctive, long, sharp spikes on their exterior.

The fruit, which is highly decorative and thus is sold mostly as a garnish, tastes like a mix of cucumber, lemon, lime and banana. The yellow-green flesh has a gelatinous consistency, and contains whitish seeds similar to those of a cucumber. To an extent, it looks like a mutated hippie kiwifruit, which probably explains the name Kiwano, which is trademarked by Prinut Inc. - blatantly another fruit branding scheme, not unlike Zespri for Kiwifruits, Sunkist for Oranges or Grapple for Grape Flavoured Apples (“Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape!”).

It’s pretty nutritious too, fat-free with 25 calories per 100g serving and 40% Vitamin C – even if it doesn’t taste much good and apparently contains a bitter non-volatile compound that is toxic to mammals, according to the factSHEET by Aliza Benzioni at Purdue University. I must admit I got just a wee bit worried at the fact that its considered a toxic food-substance, but me being me just went “Oh, what the hell. I’ll be damned if a Kiwano kills me, and not those Marlboros, or the random drunk crazy Asian boy-racer hit-and-run specialist.”

Eating it was a gastronomic experience – not a very tasty one, what with it being mildly “toxic” – but an experience nonetheless. Perhaps I’m inflicted with the “gourmand syndrome”, described by Swiss Medical Specialists Regard and Landis as a “benign eating disorder associated with lesions involving parts of the right anterior cerebral hemisphere… a preoccupation with food and a preference for fine eating.”

I don’t think I’d be running back to the supermarket to buy another Horny Melon though, unless I’m catering for some fancy event featuring an ‘exotic’ fruit platter – and even then, I’d probably craftily use it as a garnish tantalisingly presented to fool the poor unsuspecting guests…

Now where’s that gosh-darned Grapple gone? I feel a pang of grape-flavoured apple cravings coming forth…

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For more information and pictures of the Kiwano, see further:

-> Cooking For Engineers – Off Topic: African Horned Melon or Kiwano

-> Obsess.com – Fruit Reviews – Kiwano Horned Melon

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Published:
21.06.06 / 12pm
Category:
Gastronomy