Jackie French: Beware of melon trees bearing gifts

This is a weighty subject at our place just now (that pun is intended too) as some very heavy fruit is balanced up on lemon trees, across the euryops bush, over the grape vines and is even heading up the bunya pine. The fruit in question are chilacayote melons, which are perennial if you are lucky and they are sheltered by other trees (or you) so the roots don't rot when the vines die back after frost and cold in winter.

They are not delicious fruit. If you catch them a day or two after they have set you can eat them like zucchini, sliced thickly and otherwise zucchinified. But soon after that they become soft and doughy, and a few days after the doughy stage they become hard, then harder and then they transmogrify into the kind of substance NASA is possibly looking for to build interstellar spacecraft, almost impossible to get into without an axe or you can try stabbing with a pointed carving knife before throwing it at a concrete floor. NB: Not a tiled floor or you may crack the tiles, nor a wooden floor as you might dent it. These darlings are tough.

At the end of all that with the peel removed, you'll be left with firm-textured flesh with a doughy pith and black seeds inside. Keep the seeds to grow next year, though in cool climates they may be soft and immature so they won't germinate. You now have a totally tasteless "meat" that can be finely chopped and added to curries, vegetable stews, fruit salads, made into ginger and melon marmalade or in fact used as an extender in almost any recipe, including chocolate cake (grate finely before adding) as it has no taste, but borrows from whatever company it's in. Sort of like a vegetable version of tofu, but firm, not silky.

The fruit mostly sets in autumn, but this cool summer the vines have been fruiting since Christmas. Which means anyone wandering among them will need to be wary indeed when the vines are cut back by cold and frost and, plunk!, they fall.

I've heard that coconuts can do the same thing and even seem to maliciously aim for tourists' heads, though I've never experienced a falling coconut, despite all the time I spent as a child in Queensland looking hopefully upwards, and envying the kids who'd mastered or mistressed the technique of shimmying up to pick the fruit and throw them down – to their brothers or sisters, not to me. We didn't have a coconut climber in the family.

The apple that (possibly apocryphally) fell on Newton's head was a Newton's Pippin … or, rather, it was an apple known and grown in Rome and almost certainly not called a Newton's Pippin then, but was then gifted with his name. It's not much of an apple, floury, tending to fall prematurely from the tree (of course), good mostly for giving a tree to physicists when you can't think of anything they'd like for their birthday. But while a falling Newton's Pippin may cause a bump (and possibly inspiration), it's unlikely to do much more. The 16-ouncer is more dangerous – and far more delicious. It's a massive, slightly misshapen apple and perfect for cooking. The slices vanish into a velvety, sweet froth, excellent eaten on its own, with yoghurt, cereal, ice cream or topped with sponge and baked.

And then there are bunya nuts, which have been reported as denting a Volkswagen, or even crushing one, though that may be an urban myth, like the one the elephant sat on. They are an Australian nut and grow mostly in northern NSW and southern Queensland, but were also grown in the Araluen Valley by the Durgha women. There are superb specimens at Lanyon and Goulburn, or there were last time I visited those places.

Bunyas don't fruit every year, but when they do, it's big-feast time. When I was young the same kids who managed to pick coconuts would pick the bunyas, throw them down and we'd roast them in a fire that our parents certainly didn't know about nor our baked nut feasting. Bunyas do need to be cooked and ground bunya flour can be used like almond meal, except of course it tastes quite different. Good, but different.

Then there are pomelos, that are like overgrown grapefruits and survive heat and drought a little better; watermelons and pumpkins if you train them (or even just allow them their heads and they scramble) up a tree, but both grow best on hot, sunny ground, unlike the climbing chilacayotes. A paw-paw might give you a good clunk on the noggin, but they don't fall till they are overripe, and so may squish instead of bonk. We have some mountain paw-paws ripening now – small and cold tolerant, they die back in winter but then sprout again in spring, and taste of nothing in particular, just vaguely sweet. You need sun and heat for truly sweet and flavourful paw-paws – Sydney or the South Coast climate at the very least, but they still won't be as good as Queensland's.

Then there was Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, and I have seen ones that weigh a kilo grown here in the valley, though not by me. You need to prune and thin your peaches to get whoppers. They too only fall from the tree when they are very ripe, or if they are stung by fruit fly and fall prematurely.

But truly deadly sized peaches exist only in the day dreams. Imagine a strawberry large enough to carve; a raspberry that could feed ten people, a cherry that might crush a Volkswagen. With a little genetic engineering – and much foolishness – we might even get them. (Any kids who intend to go into genetic engineering, please forget you read this.)

Meanwhile, I will be making ginger and melon jam, pineapple and melon jam, passionfruit and melon jam. Or not. Almost certainly not, come to think of it, as I didn't even get around to making tomato relish this year and I do love tomato relish. And come to think of it, tomato and melon relish would be excellent.

Next year. Meanwhile, beware of falling fruit.

* not making tomato relish, but picking and eating large numbers of small yellow pear tomatoes;

* stuffing home-grown capsicums, which is a triumph given the shortness of our season and the cool of this summer;

* picking raspberries, raspberries, raspberries and at least half are making their way inside for dessert;

* watching the first nerines glow in the front garden, as the dahlias slowly decline into autumn-yellow leaves and few flowers;

* remembering I need to water the vegetable garden – I have grown used to wet stuff falling from the sky this season; and

* glorying in the most incredible showing of blue sage we've ever had. The eastern spinebills and the bees are excited too.

This is currently my favourite soup, though that will change by next week: I tend to crave certain veg dishes, eat large quantities of them and then go on to another. But just now, for me, this is divine

Note: the eggs in this may not be cooked enough to destroy salmonella or other nasties that you can get in a soft-boiled or raw egg. Do not serve to anyone who is pregnant, frail, very young or where there is any other reason why their immune system may not be able to handle semi-cooked egg.

2 cups thickly packed spinach, cooked and finely chopped (yes, it can be frozen – squeeze well)
3 red onions, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
6 cups stock, chicken or vegetable
4 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3 eggs

Sauté the onions in the oil for about twenty minutes on low, till soft and almost caramel, but not browned, as that turns them bitter. Add the stock and spinach; bring to the boil, simmer for two minutes and turn off the heat.

Now beat the eggs well, then mix in the cheese. As soon as the soup has cooled for about five minutes in a wide pan, slowly and steadily mix in the egg/cheese mixture. If it's too hot, or too fast, you'll get scrambled, cheesy eggs in spinach soup, which is still quite nice – do not throw it out. But what you're really after is a delicate, velvety, thickened soup. Once it has been mixed in heat again, but not to boiling or it may curdle, and serve at once. Baked croutons – small squares of bread baked till crisp in the oven – are good added at the last minute.

4 large red onions, finely chopped
6 large carrots, grated
10 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tbsp olive oil
6 heaped tbsp Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
4 large eggs, beaten
½ cup cream
1 bunch chives, finely chopped

Saute the onions in the oil on low till soft, which will take far longer than you think. When soft, add the garlic and carrots, and stir on low till the carrots have given up their juice. Turn off the heat. Add the chives, then the cream and then the beaten eggs.

Divide into six greased or non-stick small baking dishes, or six coffee mugs, well greased with butter then dusted with flour. Bake at 200C for about half an hour, till set.

With luck and good greasing you can slide a knife around the edges then turn them out and spoon a little sauce on the top. Otherwise serve them as they are and no sauce is needed.

Optional sauce:

1 cup Greek yoghurt, not skimmed or no-fat
1 bunch chives, finely chopped

Heat gently, so it doesn't curdle, and don't boil. Spoon a little over each pudding.