apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I put salt on all my fruit, especially melons, pineapple and strawberries. Granted, I'm a salt addict, but I think they taste better that way.

Growing up in Texas, most of my family members put salt on their watermelon and canteloupe. It was never my thing though.

This is also a very asian thing to do, but I never bought into it either.

I am a huge fan, however, of squeezing fresh lime juice over watermelon slices and fruit salad. I've been doing it all summer, and its great. I like the sour/sweet over the salty/sweet.

The very BEST way to eat watermelon is with Greek feta cheese. Cut up the watermelon into bite-sized pieces and sprinkle feta cheese over it. So delicious.

I used salt when I was a kid, because my Southern family always did. I stopped as an adult.

My (asian) family likes to put salt on fresh pineapple, but I'd never heard of it on watermelon....seems very strange to me in either case.

Rog-
Try mixing up a couple lime juice, honey and shredded fresh mint (all amounts to taste) to make a dressing for your watermelon - it is the only way we eat it! Yum, now I want some!

One parent is asian and the other is southern, so yes... Salt on the fruit, absolutely.

Definitely going to try feta cheese, never heard of it but it sounds delicious!

i never did, but it's a very southern thing to do. i have some watermelon in my fridge, maybe i'll give it a try. :)

iheartveggies, my family put salt on cantaloupe too. I was wondering if this was a regional thing but I grew up in CT, with family from CT and Maine, and it seems like most of the other commenters who grew up eating melon this way were/are from the South.
When I asked about this in response to Vanessa's earlier post I forgot about the combination of prosciutto and cantaloupe - a classic combination of something salty with melon, and a very good one - it must have been in the back of my mind because that's what I had for lunch on Saturday!

I had no idea that most people DIDN'T put salt on their watermelon.

(Yes, I'm a southerner.)

Fuzzy, I was thinking the same thing.

I'm in Minnesota and I salt my watermelon. Heck yes. Fresh ground sea salt on ice-cold, vine-ripened watermelon? Better than life itself.

What a disgusting idea. Like we don't get enough salt in our food now.

I'm Mexican, so I put salt, lime and powdered chile on all kinds of fruit and jicama ;-)

I just had this conversation with my boyfriend's family. I had never heard of it, but they -- Jews from Manhattan all -- didn't quite swear by it, but were certainly familiar with it as a way to bring out flavor, citing its similarity to (as mentioned above) cantalope and proscuitto.

My first thought - yuck no! But then, I grew up eating cantaloupe with cottage cheese, which is delicious, so perhaps I'll have to give it a try. At the least, watermelon and feta does sound yummy.

I never knew it was a southern thing until I moved away for school, and people looked at me like I had two heads when I asked for salt for my watermelon. However, those yankees did teach me about the joys of vodka-infused watermelon. Big syringe bottle of vodka watermelon x overnight to soak = yummy goodness :-)

My mom spotted the watermelon/feta combo at an event and has been making it at home ever since. It's MUCH better than it might sound...and she's been adding teeny bits of basil as well. All together, watermelon, feta and basil are really really good. Sounds strange, tastes delicious.

Sea: I disagree. The very best way to eat watermelon is to simply eat watermelon. Preferably in over-sized slice form, so one can wear an embarrassingly wide, wet, pink smile.

so, i sprinkled a little kosher salt onto my leftover cubed watermelon from lunch. it was quite good. i might be doing that from now on!

I'm a southerner too. We always put salt on canteloupe, but we didn't put it on watermelon. Irelate putting salt on melon to the idea of serving it with prosciutto. The salt really brings out the sweetness of the melon.

We ate canteloupe at the dinner table, like a vegetable. We always ate watermelon as a dessert or a treat, which may explain why we didn't salt it.

Ice cold watermelon and salt. Now, that's summer.

It seems that the pro-salt group in this line of commentary has a variety of fruity salty recommendations. How great is it that we all have different ideas about this particular combination? I'm going to try these new, fabulous recipes.

An aside observation: it is hot and muggy in the southeast. If one has been working or playing outside all day, a salted watermelon is a perfect way to rehydrate. Perhaps we could consider it an early form of the sports drink? Does anyone else find it a funny coincidence that Gatorade was developed at a university in Florida?

my granddad used to put salt and pepper on all fruit. he also would eat a stick of butter with syrup poured on it. i may be from alabama, but i don't eat like that! and i've had salt on walamelon (as i like to call it) but i like walamelon because it feels so hydrating when you eat it - and i'm a salt fanatic, too, but these two need to be kept separate for me!

Sure I salt my watermelon - not all the time as it depends on what I am craving at the moment.
My mom's family always salted watermelon and grapefruit.

Fresh squeezed lime juice & grated fresh ginger on watermelon is my favorite. I just tried the salt thing & I see the attraction (it's like getting thirsty and quenching your thirst at the same time), but I still prefer the sour/sweet versus the salty/sweet.

Well as an African-American growing up in Kansas many years ago, we always salted our watermelon and cantaloupe when we ate it and when I moved to Florida as an adult, I realized it was a Southern thing to do also. When I visited Southern California during summers as a youth, I didn't see many others salting the melons like I did.

liseah - watermelon, feta and mint, v good too - and works well on cocktail sticks with drinks. As a salad adding a few black olives and a drizzle of olive oil can be good on occasion.

Can't wait to try salt.

Having family from the South and Asia, we always had salt on our melons. If there's salt, I do, if there's not, I don't.

Delicious, I don't do it all the time, but being Asian and growing up partially in the south, it just went hand in hand. I love ANYTHING with watermelon in it. I too, make the feta watermelon salad a lot--a little feta goes a long way and I always add basil, mint and thinly sliced red onions too!

Sal, chile and limon on watermelon "muy chingon!" mamachilanga.
Once you've tasted the latin trifecta there's no turning back.

I think a little mango, jicama, watermelon and cucumber will be on my agenda this evening.

Oh, a quick pickling of red onions on watermelon is especially good.

Red onions sliced very thin and marinated with salt, sugar and red wine vinegar.

Wow, art, that sounds great. I might be trying that sometime this summer.

Art - sounds amazing. What do you recommend for comparative quantities - onion to melon? Thx

Lesley-London,
The onion is used sparingly as a garnish to add a little sour punch to the watermelon. So go as light or heavy as you like. If you were to add goat or feta cheese you may want to go heavier on the pickled onion to cut through the fat of the cheese. I like to make this with toasted hazelnuts, mint, salt and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.

Thanks Art, what a lovely recipe. Will do, ideally as soon as the rain relents and we can eat outside again.

Salt, basil and feta for my watermelon salad!

Salt on a fresh slice!

Yum!!

And I'm definitely NOT from the south. I learned to speak french from the canadian channels we got on tv, with better reception that the US stations.

YES, mamachilanga! Salt, chile, limon in a bag with apple slices, yum. But I grew up in southern Arizona, and that was just how the Mexican side of my family ate fruit - I had no idea it was eaten like that anywhere else.
Salt is perfect on pretty much any fruit... but tart crisp apples with the tiniest bit of salt has to be the most perfect flavor in the world to me.

I'm Mexican, so I grew up putting salt on my watermelon as well. It's absolutely delicious! Mango with salt, chile piquin and lime is also fabulous.

I tend to not salt fruit or anything sweet for that matter... kind of defeats the purpose don't you think?

But I'm always ready to try new things so next time I eat watermelon (soon probably) I will sprinkle a little salt on it and give it a try.

PS: How much salt?

I had though about asking where the yes votes were coming from - curious to hear if it was regional. My mom's family is from Kansas and I grew up salting watermelon, grapefruit, cantalope and avocados. These days I'm like several of the posters above - it the salt's in front of me, I'll do it - if not, I won't.

PS - Pete - usually just a sprinkle - especially if you don't normally add salt to your food. But it's all a matter of taste.

And do sometime try cukes with salt, lime and chili as suggested above - it's making my mouth water just thinking about it.

I answered that I've never heard of this...but I just remembered when I was younger, my gramma taught me to sprinkle a tiny bit of salt on apple slices (I grew up in B.C. orchard country), so I guess it's a little similar....?

Salt and...pepper...nothing Asian about it. I'm African American/Bahamiam.

I used to put salt on apple slices when I was a kid, but salt on watermelon (or any other type of fruit for that matter) sounds very unappealing to me.

For all the folks that are say it's disgusting....Please...Salt on watermellon is great. Salt on a fresh cold slice is just tasty. Before you use words like disgusting how about you try it first. You might like it!

i'd never heard of it till i was about 21. same w/ sugar on strawberries. i thought it sounded nasty, but it really enhances the flavor.

I tried this over the weekend. It was rather tasty but nothing to write home about, in my taste opinion. I used regular table salt which seemed to just dissolve into the watermelon. Is the trick to use coarse salt??

I had never heard of this until an old roommate said she was shocked that I didn't put salt on watermelon. I tried it and all I could think of was that it tasted like blood. I told her that, and apparently she's never salted her watermelon since!

LunaC - nope - table salt and yes, it's supposed to dissolve into the melon. You're not really supposed to taste the salt (unless you really like salt and use a lot) - it's just supposed to enhance the flavor.

Next time, try using varying amounts of salt on each separate bite, until you hit the right amount. Or decide that it's just not for you.

Interesting discussion. Thanks for throwing it out here, Faith.

Best way to eat watermelon: with someone you love and any damn way ya please ;)

I'll give the salt a try. Perhaps if I'm brave, with a sprinkle of the bacon salt I just ordered.

I am not a salt addict, but occasionally a sprinkle of sea salt does make the watermelon seem sweeter!