melon de Montréal

CONT: The melon's roots can be traced back to varieties brought over by French settlers in the seventeenth century. In its heyday, half a century ago, the Montreal melon was the Queen of Melons. Its delicious, green flesh was prized in the fancy dining rooms of New York and Boston, where customers would pay a big price for the pleasure of eating just a single juicy slice. A 1938 handbook Vegetables of New York claimed that ""handled skillfully and intelligently, the melon produces the largest fruits of its type in American cultivation."" A single melon could easily reach 15 pounds! And its unique spicy flavour was the reason it was also known as ""The Montreal Nutmeg Melon.""
CONT: Unfortunately, it is all too easy to lose varieties which contain unique genes; for instance the ""Montreal melon"", once renowned for its special taste and sold in New York for exorbitant prices, has disappeared without a trace.