Summer Fruit Special: 🍑 or 🍈?

THINK is dedicated to answering the hard questions, those questions that leave you chewing your nails in the middle of the night. 🍑 or 🍈? Jonathan Firbank is our 🍑 specialist, and David Mizzi is the 🍈 majordomo! Two fruits, two writers, but only one can be the summer fruit sensation.

Don’t you just love summer? Okay, moving quickly past the scorching sun and heatstroke, there’s summer vacation, the sea, the beach, and the summer fruit! What’s your summer fruit of choice? Do you love munching on a juicy 🍑, or maybe you just want to get your hands on a pair of succulent 🍈s?

JF: Surely 🍑s are the best summer fruit? My misguided colleague might prefer melons, but peaches have stood the test of time. In Europe, in the hard centuries before bountiful 🍈s reached our shores, many would have been sustained by the fond memory of chowing down on a perfectly ripe peach. To this day, these summer treats are tastier than the best efforts of confectionery. And now there are endless varieties to enjoy!

DM: Forget what my 🍑-loving associate has to say. Summer is about two things: a pair of big round melons 🍈🍈, and… I can’t remember the other thing. Anyway, moving on, there are dozens of different types of melons, and while all of them are full of sweet, juicy fun, I could only choose three due to word count limitations.

Let’s get this party started; which of these fruits, 🍑 or 🍈, gets your summer vibes throbbing?

Yellow Peach

It’s not controversial to say that the 🍑, perfectly ripe and in season, could be the tastiest thing you put in your mouth. Too much sugar, too much juice, too little resistance when bitten into – these excessive elements seem to balance each other out to make a perfect fruit. Well, perfect to some. This easily bruised, fibrous fruit – with fuzzy skin – is heaven to many and an abomination to some. The last thing you want when eating 🍑 is to finish with something stuck in your teeth, or worse still, to chip a tooth on its particularly bizarre stone. And out of season, a 🍑 will leave a sour taste in your mouth. But in season, to quote Nicholas Cage, you could eat a peach for hours.

Cantaloupe

The Instagram thirst trap of 🍈. This spray-tanned showoff is overconfident, overexposed, and just tries way too hard. The kind of fruit that shows up at the pool party with its netted rind crop top, and yells ‘shots!’ before you’ve even found a towel. This melon might look like it’d make for a good time, but, just like clubbing in your 30s, you’ll find yourself wondering – is it really worth it? As soon as you get close, the first thing that hits you is a whiff of musk. Once you’ve gotten past that and cracked it open, bite into it for a gamble: either you’ll find sweet and intense flesh or a mouthful of damp sponge. But hey, some people like this kind of 🍈. Then again, some people are also turned on by emotional instability.

Flat Peach

A grave injustice has been perpetrated on our society, for we have been conditioned to disregard a flat 🍑. This unappealing specimen, often known as a saturn peach or a – *cough* – doughnut peach, looks as though someone has sat on it. It’s squashed, smushed, flattened. But, much like a cut of meat that’s been pounded flat, it’s all the more tender for it. In fact, this writer is willing to speak aloud the ultimate blasphemy, in defiance of aesthetics and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s greatest song: the flat 🍑 is the tastiest of them all.

Honeydew

Cool, demure, and smoother than your ex’s excuses, honeydew is the understated queen of 🍈. If cantaloupe is the party animal, honeydew is the one who leaves early, but still lingers on your mind. It’s refined and sophisticated, cool to the touch, but with just enough stickiness to raise eyebrows. These melons aren’t the largest out there, although they still fit snugly in the palm of your hand. But with honeydew, it’s about maturity, rather than size. Once you open it, there’s none of that overcompensating musk nonsense, but a silky syrup that gently oozes on the skin, just begging to be licked. Once you’ve overcome your oral fixation and bitten into it, you’ll find a mild and subtle yet refreshing taste, reminiscent of pear and honey. Warning: Slippery when ripe 🥵.

Nectarine

Ah, the nectarine, the ‘we have peaches at home’ of the peach world. A 🍑 should, of course, be fun to bite – without that soft, yielding flesh, can it truly be called a 🍑 at all? But Nectarines have only one gene, out of a few dozen thousand, that is different to the peaches we know and love. This diabolical mutation renders its skin slick and plastic-like instead of soft and fuzzy, yielding a crunch when gnawed on. A mouthful of silicone can never quite replace the real thing, which leaves the nectarine in an unenviable position – it’s like a peach in almost every way, just a little bit worse. But even the least of peaches is delicious at the right time of year. A nectarine at the height of 🍑 eating season is better than any peach you’ll find in the winter months.

Watermelon

Okay, calm down all you amateur botanists. I know, watermelon is technically a berry and not a melon, but a) I don’t care, and b) it has melon in the name. Besides, can you imagine spending your summers without this curvy, bodacious, red and green beauty? 

There’s no way to properly enjoy 🍉 without getting messy. (Using a fork or a toothpick? What are you? British?). If you want an unforgettable time with this beach bombshell, ready yourself for all the seed-spitting, sugar-dripping, and tongue-staining glory that comes with it! There’s a reason this melon is an icon of summer; its bright and vivid colours are an invitation to sink your teeth into its sweet and satisfying flesh. It’s the kind of fruit that will make you forget what you were saying. And it’s also a star at festivals – hollow it out, pour some rum or vodka and use it to make a boozy melon! Either way, this melon is going to leave you with a wide and wet grin! 🍉

What’s the Consensus?

Either way, 🍑 and 🍈 are delicious and nutritious fruits. They are part and parcel of why we enjoy summer. Just like any summer love, some are sweet, others unpredictable, and others still just plain weird and fuzzy. Sure, today’s global supply chains mean you can have peaches or melons year-round, flown in from halfway around the world and burning more fossil fuel than Taylor Swift’s private jet. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Some pleasures are best when they’re seasonal, sun-kissed, and a little bit wild.