A guest post by my favorite person:
"Let me tell y'all about the Pecos Cantaloupe, something I did not know nor care about until ten hours ago. The Pecos Cantaloupe is a rare variety of cantaloupe originating from—you guessed it— Pecos, Texas. It is often regarded as the best variety in the world and was once grown in large quantities throughout the Pecos region. However, the discovery of oil in west Texas inspired many growers to drop the whole "cantaloupe farmer" thing and pursue a much more lucrative career in fossil fuels.

These days the Pecos Cantaloupe is grown almost exclusively by the Mandujano Brothers in the small town of Coyanosa. That doesn't mean there isn't commerical demand, though. My first (unwitting) encounter with the Pecos Cantaloupe was as a child, during a tour of the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory. There had evidently been a bumper crop of the cantaloupe that year, inspiring Blue Bell to buy a whole bunch and use them to produce a limited run of cantaloupe ice cream. They gave us a sample at the end of the tour. Let me tell you, the flavor of that cantaloupe ice cream is a sensory memory I still hold into adulthood. It was goooood. Good enough that they still keep an empty container on display in the West of the Pecos Museum.
Admittedly, I don't really pay attention to specific cultivars of fruit and stuff, but my mom does. Actually, she *way* does. Recently my mom received a tip (from who?! Who is giving my mom tips about the location of rare melons?!) that an HEB in downtown Houston was selling a crate or two of these precious Pecos Cantaloupes. Now, we don't live anywhere close to downtown, but that didn't deter her (nor me) from driving all the way across the city to investigate this rare cantaloupe situation.
Then, tragedy! We finally got to the HEB in question and not only found no Pecos Cantaloupes but instead found a bunch of watermelons sitting around in what was clearly a Pecos Cantaloupe crate. Some locals had apparently taken interest in the extra delicious cantaloupes and bought them all up not long before we arrived.
Still, we'd traveled all across Houston to look for this elusive cantaloupe and weren't about to give up. We went to another HEB in the area, with no luck. Then we went to a local farmer's market. Then we went to the farmer's market next to that one. Then we went to a warehouse. It was pretty tiring. However, the cantaloupe Gods rewarded us for our persistence. After a journey that took us through multiple grocery stores and three Mexican markets, we finally located the elusive Pecos Cantaloupe.
I'm no fruit expert, but the Pecos Cantaloupe is definitely a higher tier cultivar. The flesh is sweet, rich, and just about saturated with juice. The parts toward the center are comparable in sweetness to a cantaloupe flavored candy. The texture is also extremely smooth, lending the fruit an almost buttery quality.
Picture attached with me wearing a Pecos Cantaloupe sticker because we are all Pecos Cantaloupe on this blessed day!" -
R Elaine Ballard

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