flesh.
But don’t expect the proper aroma to develop in fruit picked long before it was ripe. Aromatic flavor compounds are not synthesized normally after a fruit is picked; astringent and bitter compounds no longer fade away. That’s why aroma may be the best way to tell how ripe a piece of fruit was when it was picked.
Bananas are alone in Category Five because they ripen in nearly every way after harvest. The world champions of starch conversion, they go from 1 percent sugar and 25 percent starch to 15 percent sugar and 1 percent starch during ripening. And the simple banana aroma (also known as isoamyl acetate) does develop off the tree, though it will not quite compare with the more complex perfume of a nearly tree-ripened specimen.
When most commercially grown bananas are picked, they are mature but still completely green. Turn this to your advantage: buy them green, if you have the time to let them ripen. Hard, green bananas are less likely to have been injured in handling than those that have softened and yellowed on the way. Buy them with the stems fully attached and without splits in the skin. Ripen in a paper bag until fully yellow with little brown specks. Then refrigerate what you cannot eat immediately, but expect the skins to turn black.
17. Why is fruit sometimes gassed with ethy le ne?
The industry prefers the word “treated.” As we have learned, ethylene is a fruit’s own internal ripening hormone. In heavy-breathing climacteric fruit, Categories Three through Five, brief exposure to the gas triggers the fruit’s own production of the hormone and with it whatever ripening potential the fruit possesses. When you place these fruits in a loosely closed brown paper bag at room temperature, the natural ethylene concentrates and speeds the process. Putting a ripe apple or banana in the bag can also help because these fruits generate ethylene like mad. The bag must be permeable enough to allow carbon dioxide produced by the ripening fruit to escape and oxygen to enter. Cut off from oxygen, fruit ferments. That’s the benign side of ethylene. The fruit industry also uses artificial ethylene treatment to hide incalculable sins.
18. Didn’t you promise to explain the best way of choosing melons?
I was just corning to that. If only there were one simple rule for all melons, nature’s most succulent creation! Remember that melons are climacteric—they can continue to ripen after harvest. But they never get much sweeter than the day they were picked. Buy mature melons—well formed, heavy for their size, without injuries or flat areas. When netted melons like cantaloupes are mature, the netting will be raised instead of flat and the skin between will be tan or yellow, not green. Crenshaws are the king of melons: juicy, perfumed, honeyed, tender. Some mature crenshaws may stay green rather than turn gold, except on the “ground spot,” the place where the melon rested on the earth. The background color of a Persian melon can be light green at maturity. In the honeydew, that potentially ambrosial but hard- to-choose treasure, the skin must be cream colored (not starkl y white), without a trace of green. As with other smooth melons, the skin should feel slightly waxy or tacky.
The round depression at one end of many melons is where the stem was attached; if it is smooth, without ragged edges, the melon was ripe enough to slip easily from the stem. Softening, aroma, and waxiness begin at the opposite or blossom end, which is where sniffing will tell you worlds about how sweet and perfumed the melon is inside. Experts clash on whether the aroma of an uncut honeydew is expressive. Casabas have little aroma and are an inferior species overall. Sorry.
19. Any advice about storage?
At your service. Fruits capable of ripening after they are picked should be encouraged to do so at room temperature, inside a paper bag or out. Then these fruits, and all those incapable of ripening after harvest, should be eaten
But don’t expect the proper aroma to develop in fruit picked long before it was ripe. Aromatic flavor compounds are not synthesized normally after a fruit is picked; astringent and bitter compounds no longer fade away. That’s why aroma may be the best way to tell how ripe a piece of fruit was when it was picked.
Bananas are alone in Category Five because they ripen in nearly every way after harvest. The world champions of starch conversion, they go from 1 percent sugar and 25 percent starch to 15 percent sugar and 1 percent starch during ripening. And the simple banana aroma (also known as isoamyl acetate) does develop off the tree, though it will not quite compare with the more complex perfume of a nearly tree-ripened specimen.
When most commercially grown bananas are picked, they are mature but still completely green. Turn this to your advantage: buy them green, if you have the time to let them ripen. Hard, green bananas are less likely to have been injured in handling than those that have softened and yellowed on the way. Buy them with the stems fully attached and without splits in the skin. Ripen in a paper bag until fully yellow with little brown specks. Then refrigerate what you cannot eat immediately, but expect the skins to turn black.
17. Why is fruit sometimes gassed with ethy le ne?
The industry prefers the word “treated.” As we have learned, ethylene is a fruit’s own internal ripening hormone. In heavy-breathing climacteric fruit, Categories Three through Five, brief exposure to the gas triggers the fruit’s own production of the hormone and with it whatever ripening potential the fruit possesses. When you place these fruits in a loosely closed brown paper bag at room temperature, the natural ethylene concentrates and speeds the process. Putting a ripe apple or banana in the bag can also help because these fruits generate ethylene like mad. The bag must be permeable enough to allow carbon dioxide produced by the ripening fruit to escape and oxygen to enter. Cut off from oxygen, fruit ferments. That’s the benign side of ethylene. The fruit industry also uses artificial ethylene treatment to hide incalculable sins.
18. Didn’t you promise to explain the best way of choosing melons?
I was just corning to that. If only there were one simple rule for all melons, nature’s most succulent creation! Remember that melons are climacteric—they can continue to ripen after harvest. But they never get much sweeter than the day they were picked. Buy mature melons—well formed, heavy for their size, without injuries or flat areas. When netted melons like cantaloupes are mature, the netting will be raised instead of flat and the skin between will be tan or yellow, not green. Crenshaws are the king of melons: juicy, perfumed, honeyed, tender. Some mature crenshaws may stay green rather than turn gold, except on the “ground spot,” the place where the melon rested on the earth. The background color of a Persian melon can be light green at maturity. In the honeydew, that potentially ambrosial but hard- to-choose treasure, the skin must be cream colored (not starkl y white), without a trace of green. As with other smooth melons, the skin should feel slightly waxy or tacky.
The round depression at one end of many melons is where the stem was attached; if it is smooth, without ragged edges, the melon was ripe enough to slip easily from the stem. Softening, aroma, and waxiness begin at the opposite or blossom end, which is where sniffing will tell you worlds about how sweet and perfumed the melon is inside. Experts clash on whether the aroma of an uncut honeydew is expressive. Casabas have little aroma and are an inferior species overall. Sorry.
19. Any advice about storage?
At your service. Fruits capable of ripening after they are picked should be encouraged to do so at room temperature, inside a paper bag or out. Then these fruits, and all those incapable of ripening after harvest, should be eaten
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