Even though fruit and cheese tend to go together like soup and sandwich, the first time I saw watermelon and feta cheese paired up on a menu it struck me as very odd.
Apples and cheddar? Sure. Pears and Stilton? You know it. But I was sure that watermelon was much too watery to stand up to the bold flavor of feta, no matter that everyone tends to love the interplay of sweet and salt in general, and that the combo is hugely popular in Egypt, Israel and throughout the Balkans.
Well, those folks are right and I was dead wrong. Watermelon and feta are a great match — and they are at the center of this salad.
I must confess that I’ve only recently come to love watermelon. Part of the problem is that it always seemed kind of monstrous. You brought one home from the supermarket, chopped it into hunks, and still had to empty out your whole refrigerator to store it. These days there are options. First, of course, we can buy it in pieces and sometimes by the slice. Secondly, there are now littler guys — seedless watermelons — so called because they contain only tender little edible seeds, much like the seeds in a “seedless” cucumber.