kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
kaberett ([personal profile] kaberett) wrote2023-10-24 11:27 am
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culinary self-discovery

The reason I'm finding myself indifferent to so many non-butternut winter squash is that they're too far over to the "melon" end of the (socially constructed, by me) cucumber-melon spectrum.

Which isn't really a reason in itself so much as it is a pattern, but I have long described my perspective on melons as "like if cucumbers had bad qualities and then you turned them up to 11".

(This realisation brought to you courtesy of "making pumpkin soup for lunch and questioning my life choices".)

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chiasmata: (Default)

[personal profile] chiasmata 2023-10-24 10:37 am (UTC)(link)
OMG, I had not realised that my dislike of cucumbers and melons was linked! This is so true.
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[personal profile] sfred 2023-10-24 10:38 am (UTC)(link)
I agree!
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[personal profile] pseudomonas 2023-10-24 11:18 am (UTC)(link)

How do you feel about the softer, fleshier sort of pumpkins?

Edited 2023-10-24 11:56 (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2023-10-24 12:37 pm (UTC)(link)
That doesn't seem to be how I respond to food, but it's interesting, and I am going to think about it.

If I was drawing a cucumber-to-melon spectrum, winter squash would be off to one side, relative to both: something like watermelon, cantaloupe, ... cucumber, ...acorn squash. For me, cucumber is in a space that overlaps fruit and vegetables: cucumber ice cream works, but so does putting cucumber in a dinner salad with greens.

I'm not sure where/how Waldorf salad (mostly apples and nuts, in a mayonnaise=based dressing) or my friend Jeanne's tomato-and-nectarine fruit salad fits in here.
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[personal profile] vass 2023-10-24 01:52 pm (UTC)(link)
That's really interesting. I've never much liked melons either, but I'm not fond of cucumbers either, and I do like pumpkins (which is what Australians call a lot of winter squash that other Anglophones would call "squash", including butternuts.)

For calibration: how do you feel about zucchini? I'm neutral to favourable.
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[personal profile] redsixwing 2023-10-24 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I also have a "how good is this cucurbit" scale, with melons on the Nope end.

I'd break it down as watery flesh vs firm; fibrous vs fine-grained; sweet vs savory; big seeds vs small; percentage and sliminess of seeds.

In all cases I prefer firm and savory. I'm agnostic on the fibrousness or sliminess of any given cucurbit, it just changes how I prepare it.

The outlier that I like despite being highly watery and sugary AND having extremely many slimy seeds is kiwano horned melon, which is so out the other end of Being An Melon that it's almost a passionfruit.
Edited 2023-10-24 17:16 (UTC)
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[personal profile] lunabee34 2023-10-25 10:04 am (UTC)(link)
Do you like yellow crook-neck squash? Is that what summer squash is to you?
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[personal profile] azurelunatic 2023-10-25 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
My watermelon this week was too squash.
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