The first watermelon salad I ever ate that mattered was on a bench outside a small roadside market in Apiranthos, halfway up a mountain on Naxos. I had been on a slow village bus all morning, dust on the windows, and the driver pointed at a wooden shack with a striped awning. He seemed to mean it, so I got off.
I bought a wedge of melon from one vendor and a hunk of cheese from another, which is what I thought I was eating. A woman at the next stall waved me over with both hands. She was maybe sixty, in a faded blue apron, with a small chopping board set on a wooden table behind her.
The Apiranthos Stall and the Vendor Who Spoke With Her Hands
She did not speak English. I do not speak Greek past please and thank you. She held up my melon. She held up my feta. She held up one finger that meant wait. Then she got to work in front of me, narrating with her shoulders.
A cucumber from a crate near her feet. Half a red onion shaved so thin you could read through it. A lemon squeezed over the slivers in a chipped bowl. Olive oil from an unmarked bottle she kept on a shelf. A handful of mint torn straight from a plant on the corner of the table. She built it on a small plate while I watched, pointing at each thing as she added it, nodding once when she was satisfied with the order.
It tasted like the afternoon. Cold, salty, sweet, sharp. I ate it standing up. I missed two buses.
Why Watermelon Salad Is Newer Than It Tastes
The thing she could not tell me, because she could not and because she did not need to, is that the dish she made was not actually an old recipe.
Watermelon and brined cheese have been eaten together along the eastern Mediterranean for centuries. Egypt has been growing watermelon for nearly five thousand years, and slabs of cold melon with chunks of salty white cheese have always been a hot-weather snack from Port Said to the Aegean. The combination is ancient. But the composed salad, cubed and herbed and dressed on a platter, is largely a modern construction. Greek and Palestinian food writers I have read since point this out, kindly. It rose out of tavernas and Egyptian home kitchens, and then spread through American food media in the 2000s.
So the flavors are old. The format is new. I am at peace with that.
What I Used
- 6 cups ripe seedless watermelon, cubed and chilled, picked for the heavy ones that sound hollow when you knock on them
- 1 cup English cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced into thin half moons
- Half a small red onion, shaved paper thin on a mandoline
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided so you can soak the onion in some of it
- 6 ounces Greek block feta in brine, the real kind, never the dusty pre-crumbled tubs
- Half a cup of fresh mint leaves, loosely packed, torn at the very last second
- 3 tablespoons of the grassiest extra-virgin olive oil you have
- Flaky sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, both added at the table
- 1 teaspoon honey, only if your melon is pale and apologetic
Putting It Together in My Echo Park Kitchen
This is where the wistful part shows up. I make this on a wide platter on the wooden table in my apartment, the one that catches the morning light if I get up early enough. I get the watermelon from the Hollywood farmers’ market on a Sunday if I have the energy, or from the corner Vons if I do not. I get the feta from a Greek deli on Pico that brings in the real brined block. Pre-crumbled feta does not work here. I tried it once when I was being lazy and the salad tasted of cardboard.
The smells in the kitchen as you build it are the closest I get to that bench. The mint first, when you tear it, green and almost peppery on your fingers. Then the lemon hitting the onion in the small bowl, sharp enough to make my nose run. Then the olive oil going over the cucumber and the melon, grassy and a little bitter. The pepper crack.
Nothing actually cooks. There is no heat. Just a quiet little ceremony of laying everything down on the platter, in loose layers, never tossed.
The feta last. Broken with fingers into creamy shards. Never to dust.
The Small Things I Got Wrong
The first time I made this at home I salted everything at the start, the way I salt a tomato salad. By the time I called my neighbour over, the platter was a pink puddle. Watermelon is over 90% water. Salt pulls the juice out of the cubes through osmosis, fast, and the whole thing slumps. Now the flaky salt and the feta both go on at the very last second, after the platter has hit the table.
I also lay the cubed melon on paper towels for ten minutes after cutting, to wick off the surface water. This is a little fussy and I almost skipped it. I am glad I did not. It is the difference between a salad that holds its edges for an hour and one that weeps in fifteen.
I add a small drizzle of honey if the watermelon is pale. Most of the time I do not bother. I trust the fruit.
I serve it with grilled lamb skewers when I have time, or just with warm pita and a bowl of kalamata olives when I do not. A chilled glass of rosé alongside, or ouzo on ice if I am pretending. The leftover juice pooling at the bottom of the platter is too good to throw away. I pour it over crushed ice with a splash of soda water the next morning and call it breakfast.
I have made this dozens of times since Apiranthos and it has never tasted quite as good as it did on that bench. Not because mine is worse. The salad is a small ferry back to that day, and that is enough.
Watermelon Salad
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Place the shaved red onion in a small bowl and pour 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice over it. Toss to coat and let it sit for at least 10 minutes while you prep everything else. This mellows the raw bite and turns the onion bright pink.
- Cube the chilled watermelon into 1 inch pieces, picking out any stray seeds. Spread the cubes on a paper-towel-lined tray for 10 minutes to wick off surface moisture, then transfer to a wide shallow platter in a single loose layer.
- Slice the English cucumber lengthwise, then cut into 1/4 inch half-moons. Scatter the cucumber evenly over the watermelon.
- Lift the onion out of the lemon juice, shaking off the excess, and scatter the slivers across the platter. Reserve the lemon-onion liquid in the bowl.
- Whisk the olive oil, the remaining 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, the cracked pepper, and the honey (if using) into the reserved lemon-onion liquid until glossy and slightly thickened.
- Drizzle the dressing evenly over the platter. Do not toss — you want layers, not a slush.
- Just before serving, break the block feta into rough 1/2 inch chunks with your fingers, dropping the pieces over the salad so you get creamy shards rather than dust.
- Tear the fresh mint leaves directly over the platter and finish with a generous pinch of flaky sea salt and one more turn of cracked black pepper.
- Serve immediately, straight from the platter, with a slotted spoon so guests can leave the released juice behind.