Markets are to France are as big box stores are to the United States. You can mark the season by what is available in the market. I frequent the market at least three to four times a week, always looking for something I have never seen before. When I find something new, I bring some home to try it. Last week, while passing through a market, I noticed a very strange melon. My French being what it is-poor at best- I read the tag. It says “Pasteque de Confiture”. I was a little puzzled, watermelon for jam? What kind of jam would that be? How can you make jam out of a watermelon? So I asked; Qu’est-ce que il est? (What is it?) And I was told that this was a watermelon for jam. Yes, just as I thought, but that did not help. I have never heard of such a thing! I was on my way somewhere and not able to drag a melon with me; I had to let the melon go. But, the rest of the day I thought of nothing else but that melon. I could not imagine what was inside the melon and what kind of confiture it would make. Later, I decided to let Google explain it to me. I typed in “watermelon confiture” and immediately got my answer! It seems that there are others like me: a foodie let loose in Southern France and they have stumbled upon strange melons too! Well, I just had to see for myself.
The next day I went to another market. I searched until I found the melon of jam. I asked the melon man about it and again the same story, a melon not for eating, but to make jam. I could barely lift the melon, and since I had other things in my bag that day, I decided I would make a special trip the next morning to retrieve my melon. Going back the next morning, the melon man had three rather large melons. By this time, the melon man Abibe knew me pretty well. He helped me chose the best one. From that moment on, I decided to chronicle my melon adventure. Abibe held the melon for it’s first photograph and thus begins the Confiture de Pasteque journey. My melon weighing 7.3 kilos and I hand carried it a mile and a half back home. I lugged the melon all the way since I was afraid it would bounce out of the bicycle basket and splatter, so precious my melon. Later I would learn that these melons a fairly indestructible and a bounce on cobblestones would not hurt it! The next morning, my arms were sore from melon lugging.
Once I had the melon home I sat it in a comfy chair while I searched for more information on how to make the jam. This is a watermelon, but not of the usual picnic type. The Citrullus Lanatus is native to the Kalahari Desert in Central Africa and is called tsamma. In the US it is called a citron watermelon. This melon is believed to be the original or ancestral variety of today’s common watermelons. Citron melons were cultivated in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago, in India since 800 AD, brought to Spain in 961 AD and then onto the New World with the Spanish in the 1500’s. It grows wild in many places today in the US and Mexico, but is rarely cultivated in the Western world outside the south of France. Citron melons remain a food source in Africa. According the information posted, the citron melon can be stored for up to a year without spoiling and is relatively tough to break open. The flesh of the citron watermelon is whitish, very dense and almost without flavor. It tastes like a cross between a very weak honey dew melon and a timid cucumber. Importantly though, for making jam, the fruit is high in pectin. Now the trick was to make something edible out of it since there was going to be a lot of whatever it was.
Several web sites discuss preparation of the confiture, but none were the same. I decided to combine a few recipes and work from there. Basically, the ratio is to every 2 kgs of melon there are 1.5 kg sugar added plus lemons or oranges. Some called for zest, others sliced whole fruit, while others added juice. I decided to use both oranges and lemons, zest them plus squeeze in the juice. Another site suggested adding some ginger, so I added fresh grated ginger to one batch. One site suggested macerating the fruit in sugar overnight to soften the fruit. The fruit was hard, so that made sense to me. My melon was fairly large, so I divided the fruit into two containers for the overnight maceration. I decided to add ginger to one batch and leave the other one plain. My husband suggested some other fruit go into the other batch. I believe he was disturbed by the mountain of whitish- yellow fruit and was afraid of having to eat so much pale jam. I was not convinced, but gave in and added a bag of frozen forest fruits: red and black currants plus blackberries to the other batch.
These are the recipes:
2.0 kg citron melon cubed
1.5 kg demerara sugar
1.5 oranges, juice plus zest
2 lemons, juice plus zest
100 grams fresh ginger grated- to one batch
1 bag frozen fruit of choice to the other batch
I brought the macerated fruit to a boil and then simmered as the websites suggested. After an hour, the fruit was a little softer, but not breaking down. The liquid remained very thin and syrupy while the fruit was fairly firm and completely intact. I imagined marmalade: tiny pieces of fruit suspended in a soft gel. When things are not right in my kitchen, I take action; my go to piece of equipment for a situation like this is the immersion blender! I went to work on the fruit and broke it down to desired consistency. Breaking down the fruit released the natural pectin and the concoction started to firm up. Once the jam reached the desired consistency, I put it in jars and sealed them. I completed by processing the jam in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Voile, Confiture de Pasteque!
Confiture de Pasteque is an accompaniment for duck, foie gras, fromage blanc, salmon and just about anywhere else you would use jam or chutney. Both versions of the confiture are very delicious.
To grow your own melons, you can buy the seeds on Amazon and other heirloom seed distributors. The price on Amazon was 50 cents for 15 seeds. The websites seem to warn that these melons are “extremely productive”. They are also listed as drought tolerant and resistant. You may want to grow your own and experiment for yourself.
I took a jar of confiture to Abibe, and we’ll see what the locals have to say about it!
