Selina Denman
It’s the tail end of watermelon season in Cyprus. It’s quite possible that I have subconsciously timed my trip home precisely because of this fact, because for me, the humble watermelon, or “karpouzi” as it’s more commonly known in these parts, is the king of fruits.
I’ve always felt this way. There are pictures of me as a scruffy 5-year-old sitting on the steps outside our house (my mother always banished me to the steps because I made such a sticky mess), diving into a wedge of perfectly pink watermelon that’s practically the size of my head.
During watermelon season, this refreshing fruit becomes a culinary staple on the Island of Love. It’s found piled precariously high on pavements, where local farmers set up makeshift stands and enjoy a roaring trade, and in every “froutaria” – the dedicated fruit markets where every self-respecting Cypriot still goes to buy fresh produce.
Watermelon is served for breakfast, along with thick chunks of halloumi cheese – the latter’s tangy saltiness perfectly offsets the sweetness of the fruit. It’s chopped up and put into salads that are the ideal antidote to a sweltering Mediterranean summer day; or served as dessert – cubed, deseeded and ice cold.
With the juicing trend having finally reached the shores of this somewhat backward little island, it’s now also found in morning smoothies and mid-afternoon drinks, its high levels of the antioxidants lycopene and beta carotene (as well as potassium, which helps to regulate blood pressure) making it an ultra-healthy, energy-packed, low-calorie addition to the diet.
I’m often to be found lamenting the sorry state of watermelons in the UAE. To this Cypriot watermelon snob, they’re either unripe, a sickly shade of pink so pale that it’s indistinguishable from the fruit’s rind, or overripe and tinged with red, with a woolly texture that has no place in my fruit salad.
Woolliness aside, for me, this symbolises a far wider issue. Back home, watermelons, along with apricots, figs and cherries, are a symbol of the onset of summer – growing up, that first karpouzi marked the advent of glorious sunny days, school holidays and long, lazy hours spent by the sea.
In the same way, mandarins and clementines were a sign that Christmas was on its way. These fruit were symbols of the changing seasons – a colourful marker of where you were in the year.
You just didn’t expect to eat particular fruit out of season. You waited patiently, and were rewarded with locally grown produce that was organic by default, just as nature intended. You also knew that it had been grown within a 100-kilometre radius of your home, on small to midsize farms.
Admittedly, it wasn’t always the perfect shape or size, and it didn’t have that otherworldly sheen that we have become so accustomed to. But it always delivered when it came to flavour. Because of that, you never took it for granted, like so many of us do in this day of extreme consumerism, where everything is available whenever and wherever we want it.
Wander around any supermarket in the UAE, and you’ll be presented with weird and wonderful fruit and vegetables from every corner of the globe. I understand that variety is the spice of life. But having travelled half way across the world and been frozen, sprayed and injected with God knows what, much of the fruit that shimmers so enticingly at us from the aisles of these megamarkets is, in my eyes, a fraud. It’s a pale, uninspired, unappetising imitation of the real thing.
I, for one, would much rather wait.
Selina Denman is the editor of Home&Garden.
sdenman@thenational.ae