Contents of the article:
The Assan Bay beehive or Hassanbey belongs to late-ripening, winter varieties. The ripening of fruits of this subtype occurs not on melon seed, but already during storage. If a fresh, freshly cut fruit is tried by a person who is not very familiar with the peculiarities of autumn-winter kassab, he can easily become disillusioned with the famous delicacy without knowing its true taste.
Sweetness and unique juiciness to melon comes 1-3 months after harvest, but you should not wait for honey aroma from this variety. Like all kassabs, Assan-Bey in its immature form smells like zucchini or cucumber, and when ripe it has an almost imperceptible delicate flavor.
Descriptions of type Assan Bey
The homeland of this interesting type is Asia Minor, and more precisely the Turkish province of Balykesir near the Sea of Marmara. Here and until now, a lot of land is set aside for planting melons and special storages, where neatly hung fruits gather sweets and wait for their turn to go to gourmets who want to feast on a truly summer treat in winter.
Assan Bey melon fruits weigh from 3 to 6 kg, have a spherical or slightly elongated shape. A characteristic feature of the cultivar is the mastoid protrusion at the petiole and the dark green, sometimes almost black, wrinkled surface of the fruit. On the dense skin of melons there is no pattern or hint of a grid of cracks. In most cases, the color does not change even at the time of ripening.
If the melon cut from a melon has a taste and consistency of pulp rather resembling a dense, mild juicy zucchini, then the ripe fruit deserves the attention of any connoisseur of melons and gourds. In terms of sugar content, reaching 13%, Assan Bey can compete with honey summer varieties.
Melon pulp of this type is distinguished by its highest palatability, which makes it possible to attribute melons to dessert varieties. But kassabs can be consumed not only fresh. In the XIX century, they were used as a raw material for the production of dried melon, marmalade, candied fruits and jam.
History of Assan-melons in Europe and Russia
Winter kassabs from Turkey have long been familiar to the people of Russia. Delivered by water to Rostov-on-Don, and then to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities, fruits in the nineteenth century in the Russian Empire were in demand and were called “Smirn melons” or “Southern beauties”.Melons overcame the difficult road. Moreover, at the beginning of the 20th century, domestic melon-growing enthusiasts made successful attempts to cultivate cassabs Assan-bey in Gagra. Plants bore fruit, no less sweet than their Turkish ancestors.
According to the notes left by travelers of those years, melons from Asia Minor were exported to Marseille and other port cities. In the Old World, melons were grown only in greenhouses and were very rare. Therefore, sweeter and more juicy than the cantaloupes known in Europe, the fruits of the Kassab melons became a real discovery. On the basis of these species, a new American type of melons was bred, combining the flavor of cantaloupe, sweetness and juiciness of kassabs.
