The Melon Vendors

The Melon Vendors


Watermelons are very popular here in Romania. They are grown in the southern tier of the country and shipped in to Transylvania. Eggplant, known as vinite, and melons are the most popular summer produce. Corn is available in the markets but it is not the sweet corn that appeals to our American tastes, but a courser type. Beans and tomatoes and summer cabbage and onions and potatoes are readily available as are peaches from the Oradea area and plums and apricots. Earlier in the season strawberries grown in the fields of Satu Mare and cherries were abundant, but the summer stables are watermelon and vinite.

We buy our produce from the vendors at the local piata. These are men or women with established places and they seem to buy their produce from the same wholesalers so that one man’s offerings are much the same as the next lady's. We have hit upon a few favorite sellers who smile at our attempts at Romanian and are patient with our fumbling for the correct change.

Watermelons though are sold in a different manner. They are handled by specialists who only deal with melon. Throughout Cluj and in all the major cities of Romania there are street corners devoted only to watermelon. The sellers are gypsies, Roma to be politically correct, and because the melons are too heavy and too large to move at the close of day, the vendors camp out at with the produce. Usually there is a canvas awning or tent protecting the melons from the midday sun and the vendors from the occasional thunderstorm.

Watermelon here are usually very sweet and if you wish to purchase one, a young boy or a woman, - it’s rare that grown men act as salesmen, will cut a triangular section of melon for you to sample. I’ve never seen any one reject a melon after the examination. It’s sort of like having a taste of the wine prior to pouring glasses all around. The Romanian word for melon is pepene. Cantaloupes are often sold at the same street corner. They are called pepene galben – yellow melon while the watermelon is either pepene rosii or pepene verde. Rosu is red referring to the insides and verde is green referring to the outside. All the terms make more sense than our cantaloupe and watermelon. I’ve tried explaining why we call the thing a watermelon to Romanians and have given up.

Apologies for not having the classroom picture that I mentioned in the last blog. I’ve had problems with the Blogsite accepting photos. I have a photo of a melon vendor that I’ll try and post but if the problem persists, I’ll do an email to everyone on my picture list to accompany the blog. If you read this blog and would like to be added to the picture list, send me an email and I’d be happy to put you there. I send additional pictures out when I have more than this blog can handle, perhaps every three or four months, but as the blog is no longer handling any, the frequency of using the picture list may increase. snowridge2000@yahoo.com