How To Eat a Kiwano (Horned Melon)

The Kiwano (also known as the Horned Melon, melano, African horned cucumber, jelly melon, hedged gourd, and/or English tomato) is a fruit native to a region of the Kalahari Desert. When picked green and allowed to ripen, the fruit tastes like a mix of cucumber and kiwifruit. When it's picked fully ripe, it has a banana-like taste. Now that you have one of these interesting fruits, where do you start?

Step 1  

Choose a kiwano that is fully ripened. It'll have an orange rind with spikes. If you can't find a fully ripened fruit, wait for it to turn orange before eating it.

Step 2  

Cut the fruit in half transversely (along the equator, as shown in the picture). Set one half aside.

Step 3  

Hold the remaining half up to your mouth. Slowly, but firmly, squeeze the fruit from the lower end. Small, semi-slimy sacs of fruit, each containing a cucumber -like seed, should come to the cut surface of the fruit.

Step 4  

Lick or suck up at least one sac of fruit and seed.

Step 5  

Pinch the sac of fruit gently with your front teeth. The seed should be between your teeth and closed lips. Suck the sac of fruit through your top and bottom teeth. Your teeth should be pinching enough to hold the seed on the outside of your teeth, yet still allowing the sac of fruit to be sucked to the back of your mouth.

Step 6  

Don't spit the seed out into the bowl unless you don't want to eat it. They aren't toxic, by the way, they just don't have any taste.

Step 7  

Chew or suck on the sac of fruit, swallowing it once you have savoured the flavour. Repeat until you've had your fill of kiwano!

Tips

• Wrap up any uneaten Kiwano and refrigerate for later consumption.
• You can suck up a few sacs at a time, storing them in your cheeks. You can also do this after removing the seeds, and chew on a larger mass of fruit sacs.
• Cut the horns off the fruit if they bother your hand, but there should be ample space between the horns to hold the fruit with comfort.
• You can squeeze out all the seed sacs at once into a bowl, and then work on them from there without having to deal with the horned shell. 
• This fruit takes a while to eat, so it is good to eat while watching television or reading.
• Take your time to enjoy this exotic fruit.
• You may want to floss your teeth after eating fruit.
• The seeds can be eaten if you want a faster method for eating a Kiwano.
• You can use a straw to suck up the still sacked-seeds from a bowl- just don't inhale too hard if one get's stuck!

Warnings

• Do not eat rotten fruit.
• The spines, while not too sharp, can be hard on the hands.
• Try to avoid eating unripe Kiwano

Things You'll Need

• Kiwano fruit
• knife
• bowl