Philosophy in the Kitchen

I was unreasonably excited to find that the grocery store in the Small City had seeded watermelon in stock last week. My strong opinions on seedless watermelons have been well documented here, but it is a sad reality that seedless watermelons are almost ubiquitous in grocery stores.

So I was very happy to find the seeded ones. Maybe they only had them for the Fourth of July, but they had them. I bought one last week. I bought another this week. I have been eating a lot of watermelon, because of course, seeded watermelons are huge.

I can see why most people don't bother with them. Not only do you have to spit seeds, but they are probably too large for an average-sized household to eat in a timely manner. Good thing we're larger than average-sized.

They are also unwieldy to cut up, and they take up a lot of space in the refrigerator. However, they're so delicious that I'm willing to put up with their inconveniences.

The most recent watermelon was a rather large inconvenience, as it rolled off the counter while I was cutting a few pieces off and smashed down onto the kitchen floor, thus cracking in several spots. So I had to cut the whole thing up right away. There was watermelon juice everywhere, and everyone was in the kitchen for lunch so it got tracked all over. The kitchen floor is still a little sticky.

I see some mopping in my future today.

Anyway.

As I was cutting it up, Cubby and I were discussing the fact that seedless watermelons have no taste. "They taste like water, " Cubby observed.

I'm raising that boy up right.

Charlie added to the discussion by complaining, "I wish I could have a real watermelon without seeds."

This provided me with the opportunity to explain that when plant geneticists started monkeying with our food to make it more convenient, they largely made it less flavorful. The watermelon is a perfect example of this.

"And so," I concluded sagely, "You can't have a delicious watermelon without the seeds. You have to choose: convenience or taste."

I could have extrapolated from there and told them that life itself is full of seeds, but that makes it all the sweeter, or something equally profound, but I decided to just eat the watermelon instead.

A good decision. A good watermelon, too.