Sprinkling salt on your watermelon isn’t just a Southern thing

Thanks to my mother’s upbringing in Alabama, I sprinkle salt on watermelon.

Every July, my dad took a month-long sabbatical from his senior minister position at our Connecticut church so our family could visit my mother’s relatives in Alabama and Atlanta.

With the car packed within an inch of its life, my sister and I squeezed in the back seat between picnic supplies, piles of maps and TripTiks, and our knapsacks overflowing with activities. The drive took nearly two days because we always stopped to visit historic sites or friends and family.

Summer corn in the fields was at its highest in July, and watermelons, peaches, and tomatoes stocked tables at every roadside farm stand from the Carolinas to the Alabama Gulf Coast.

I loved visiting my granny’s house in the summer. She lived in a modest ranch-style home my grandparents built in the late 1950s after my granddaddy found success with his hardware store. My granny was a math teacher and loved to play tennis, which she often did on the courts at the high school beyond her backyard.

My granny knew how much we loved peaches and procured as many as she could get her hands on without looking greedy to her neighbors. Watermelons were also on the list. Hulking oblong melons ready for slicing regularly sat beside the telephone desk in the kitchen or near the back door of her Oxford, Alabama home.

Hot afternoons were spent playing or reading on the screened porch. Warm evenings promised thick triangles of watermelon sprinkled with salt, followed by seed-spitting contests and chasing lightning bugs around the yard.

A week at my aunt and uncle’s Solider’s Creek home on the Alabama Gulf Coast meant crab hunting in the shallows with cousins, fishing, and swimming from dawn until dusk. Coolers of water, fruit juice, and Coke, dozens of popsicles, and sliced watermelon kept us kids hydrated, fed, and happy despite being regularly slathered from head to toe in sunscreen.

Sitting on the dock after a long day of swimming was how many days ended on the creek. Watermelon came sliced with a shaker of salt. My mother, granny, and aunt swore up and down salt enhanced the melon’s sweetness. Who was I to argue with three Southern women? It was good. I never knew watermelon was eaten any other way.

By the time we arrived home in August, watermelon season was on its way out in Connecticut, replaced by oyster season along the coast where I lived and the arrival of early apples from upstate farms.

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I finally learned not everyone salts their watermelon. In fact, when I asked for salt, reactions ranged from audible gasps to grimaces to belly laughs. People thought I was joking. I chalked it up to another Southern eccentricity like putting peanuts in your Coke or dressing up to attend a college football game.

Why salt?

“Our tastebuds respond to individual tastes, but also to the balance of those tastes, and a tiny bit of salt can help to counteract any bitter undertones,” Julia Skinner, PhD, explained. She’s the author of “ Our Fermented Lives ” and the owner of Root Kitchens . Salt forms the backbone of the work and research she does on fermentation and pickling.

Putting sugar on your watermelon, she said, would be like eating a “wall of sweet.” A dash of salt enhances the sweet notes of the melon while keeping its flavor in balance. Some melons are cloyingly sweet and salt will tone that down. Salt can also counteract the bitterness of an underripe or very firm watermelon.

Skinner, who grew up in Colorado with relatives in North Carolina, said she salts her watermelon or adds Tajín . She appreciates the balanced sweetness achieved by adding salt, sometimes using flaky or coarse salt to give watermelon some crunch.

It’s not just a Southern thing

I wanted to hear from other people about their fruit-salting habits.

A friend who grew up just a few miles west of my granny’s house not only salts her watermelon, but also her grapes. She also sprinkles black pepper on cantaloupe. Another friend remembers her grandfather sitting at his kitchen table in South Georgia salting his cantaloupe.

One of my Rough Draft colleagues said his Southern-born parents and grandparents always reached for salt when eating watermelon.

A fellow food writing colleague and Stone Mountain native grew up seasoning watermelons with Maldon’s smoked sea salt. She said it gives watermelon a little “razzle dazzle.” A friend who grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Philadelphia combines the smoked salt with spicy Tajín to season watermelon.

One person I spoke to with generational-deep roots in the South said they love salt with a squeeze of lemon juice on their watermelon.

In Japan, where summers get incredibly hot, people have salted their watermelons for decades, and for the same reasons as Skinner and my Southern matriarchs touted. You’ll find people salting watermelons throughout Southeast Asia and other countries with hot climates.

Smoky, spicy, salty, and sour

From Panama to Mexico to the UK to Japan, friends, colleagues, and strangers told me they sprinkle salt, Tajín, chili powder, black pepper, or ground cumin on their watermelon.

Tajín came up a lot in my conversations. The spicy seasoning blend combines chili peppers, lime, and sea salt. Adding it brings sweet, sour, and zingy notes to dishes, especially porous fruits like watermelon.

A friend from Newnan, Georgia with roots in Texas grew up using salt, but now mostly dresses her watermelon with Tajín.

An Atlanta bartender who grew up in Oklahoma salting her watermelon now prefers Tajín, too. She also puts a little salt in watermelon juice to use as a cocktail mixer. It balances the juice out.

Growing up in Panama before moving to Norcross, another friend told me she’s “camp Tajín” on watermelon. Heat, sweet, and sour notes hit the spot for her.

You can even purchase pre-cut watermelon packaged with Tajín at Kroger , as well as watermelon-Tajín-flavored candies. I’m a big fan of Tajín. It’s especially delicious on mangos and used to make a mangonada (a Mexican sorbet and chamoy dessert).

Another friend and restaurant industry veteran who grew up in the UK recalled his grandmother’s seasoning trick for watermelon. “Growing up in an Indian household, my Gran would use jeeru-mithu or ground cumin and salt sprinkled on top of watermelon,” he said.

Do you love watermelon and feta cheese salads in the summer? That’s a form of salting your watermelon, and a dish regularly seen on menus in countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

Sweet summer hydration

What about hydration? Watermelon didn’t get that name by accident. Our bodies lose sodium when we sweat. Are we salting watermelons in hot climates as a biological response to replenish sodium and electrolytes?

It’s believed that adding a bit of salt to the flesh increases the juice in the melon, causing it to rise to the surface.

“We know people already make unconscious food decisions based on their bodies’ desire to stay nourished and maintain balance, and we now know that our microbiome (our gut), not our head, is a big driver behind our food cravings,” explained Skinner. “We’re learning more every day about how sophisticated the communication between our gut and brain are.”

Whether you’re seeking smoky, spicy, and salty notes or bright, sour flavors, what you use to enhance the taste of watermelon may come down to where you hail from in the world. We share a lot of similar life experiences and culinary practices. Those were the main takeaways from my conversations with people about this seasoning hack over the last two weeks.

I no longer have a back porch to sit on and enjoy a crispy, cold slice of watermelon. I traded it in when I downsized to a condo last year. But you’ll still catch me reaching for the salt shaker or Tajín at a backyard barbecue, remembering the Southern women who taught me to savor the season.

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