Melone Cartucciaru di Paceco

From June the fields around Paceco fill with yellow melons. They are early and very productive, so they meet the Mantuan and Sibari crops at the start of the season, and by late July the glut has taken the price down far enough that the fruit is left in the field for the sheep and goats. Helios, which displaced the old local varieties in the early 1990s, is what is mostly grown now. The Cartucciaru is one of the varieties it displaced: long with a rounded end, smooth yellow skin, white juicy flesh, and very good.