Mutant Watermelon Seeds from Space

The best watermelon I've ever had was in Japan.

I was told the entire melon cost our host family close to $127 (U.S.)

My friend and I were guests, so according to Japanese custom, we were afforded the biggest slices.

The soft, juicy, fleshy red melon was sweet beyond any soft, jucy, fleshy melon I had eaten until then, and since. There was almost a total absence of white melon flesh. It went from dark red, to pink, to green. How is that possible?

It was chilled in the icebox (don't submerge your melon in a horse trough full of ice water, since the melon will suck the surrounding fluid in and dilute it's sweetness) to perfect consuming temperature and sliced up with all the reverance of a Kobe beef prime rib filet -- which I had at this very same meal, but that's another story.

We each were given wide brimmed bowls to eat over, to catch the earthbound juice for enjoyment later. Every drop is sacred.

At approximately $21 a slice, nothing went to waste. We even sucked the juice out of every seed and ate the opulent pinkness almost down to the green of the rind.

It was that good.

The second greatest watermelon I've eaten was given to me by my Father-in-Law last summer. He had been to an auction, and got to talking to a fella who was selling home grown watermelons off the back of his pick'em truck.

This melon was everything my Japanese melon was, only about 75% as sweet. However, at $5 a melon and 3x the size, this domestic Okie melon was a bargain indeed. I'm not mathematically inclined enough to figure what THIS melon would have set back the lovely Tokyo-ite family in Yen.

The third best melon I've had was consumed by myself this last weekend. It was as good as any other melon I've eaten here in America's heartland, but it had the most amazing seeds I"ve ever seen.

Take a gander...