The Melon Baller Expertease

Podcast guest Clare Sera. Our audience tonight is composed mostly of cocktail party goers. And the melon baller is your Expertise. Spell drunk? Naturally. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, podcast listeners from around the world. My name is Danno Sullivan. The program is Expertise for knowledge lovers who love to get their knowledge via podcasts. My guest today is an expert in the melon baller, Clare Sera. Welcome to the party. I mean, the podcast. Party podcast. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for inviting me, Danno. I cannot tell you how much I love to share the history and the enticing delights of a good melon baller.

And Clare, thank you for this lovely glass tray of knapes. Is that how you say it? Knapes? That's how I say it, but I'm not from Canada. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds like you're perpetuating a stereotype. Well, I suppose that your listeners would like to probably start at the beginning. It's a very fine place to start. Now, do you mean the beginning of the melon baller itself or the beginning of your interest in the melon baller? Well, I was actually thinking about the beginning of the melon. Oh my gosh, we're going way back now. I know that melons are mentioned in the Bible.

They are mentioned in the Bible and they're also, they feature heavily in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oh, how so? I'm not familiar with that particular text. Oh yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found near the Dead Sea in the area where scrolls are kept many, many years ago. And to the surprise of scholars, it took them a while to translate two of the words, which turned out to be melon and baller. For a while, they separated the words and they thought that perhaps the Dead Sea Scrolls were talking about one of the apostles who was a real baller. So I'm imagining the Last Supper with all those disciples there, there must have been some melon balls served.

Well, that is exactly what the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed. It was the first miracle of a melon baller. So was it like the miracle of the fishes and loaves where there was but one melon that suddenly was able to serve 13? That sounds shocking, Claire. Well, and you know what's funny about that is I think it was a little wink from Jesus because one melon, if cut in the old-fashioned way, say into squares or quarters or slices. Oh, pre-ball. Pre-balling could serve maybe 10 people, but if you ball it, if you scoop and ball. Oh, there's more surface area per unit.

You know, Jesus was as much about science as he was about miracles. And the miracle of the melon baller was really just a scientific revelation. And that was Dead Sea Scrolls 714. Claire, have you been to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City? I certainly have. The beautiful stained glass windows there from medieval times going back that far. There is sort of a straight line with a round end. Some people have said that maybe that represents like a stick figure version of the baby Jesus with its round halo head. You're talking about the orb on the stick.

They call it the orb on the stick. Orb on a stick. Orb on a stick. Yes. Tell me about the orb on the stick. Well, as some of your listeners probably well know, when a person of royal descent ascends to the throne, they hold an orb in one hand and a scepter in the other. And then sometimes the orb and the scepter are combined. What I came to learn in this, you rightly pointed out is in volume four, that's not an orb, it's a melon baller. And for years, the royalty kept this to themselves. They were the only ones that had access to scripture. And they kept this miraculous canopy creating device to themselves.

So only royal families could ball their melons. Claire, this seems to indicate that the peasants of the time, I'm sure, would not have been able to have round bites of melon. Was this a sign of demarcation between the classes? Could you judge a man by the shape of his melon? Absolutely. And I mean, you've probably seen those pictures or those tapestries of medieval times and later on, even in the Renaissance, you would see the low class folk crassly halving it, splitting a melon, and then just eating it from the rind. You know, they've got two halves of a melon and they're just shoving.

Not even knowing the possibility of small, round, bite-sized tidbits. The way the Lord intended. Dammit, Claire, the injustice of the situation, the unfairness is almost unfathomable, but unfathomable, unfathomable, unfathomable. Is that the way the Canadians say it? Unfathomable. To us today. Today, Claire, you can go down to a department store. You can see shelves full of melon ballers. Well, it's an interesting turn that history has taken. I would say that the heyday of the melon baller was truly, you know, the 1870s, the courts of France, where the peasants were also allowed.

That's when they discovered the delight of a bald melon. And some of them ran home from the first royal buffet or buff. Oh, you pronounced buffet the American way by leaving A off the end. Yes, the buff. So Claire, you've given us a lovely history lesson on the melon baller itself. How did you become personally interested? That's to me, just feels like such a little corner of a tool history. I'm only up to volume five of your six volume set, and I really haven't learned much about you, the melon baller lover. I think to answer that, I would have to go back to history itself to say after the first crude melon ballers became widely used with the invention of plastic and melamines, melon balls, melon ballers exploded, and they went from a crafty tool to just a crass, overused, over complicated tool.

Sort of like the spork of fruit. Yes. And with, with added, you know, you had melon ballers with the little like windshield wiper inside it to help you flip the ball out. You had melon ballers where you could put an impressionistic impression. Oh, an imprint on the melon itself. An imprint on the melon itself. Claire, I'm going to butt in and just say as a wedding gift, we received one of those with a monogram so we could monogram our melon balls. It's disgusting. It's sort of the reverse of the peasants and the, and the royalty. All of a sudden we were just ordinary people who've just been married.

We want to have friends over for a nice little party, Vienna fingers, lady fingers, anything with fingers. Finger food. Finger food to put out in a tray. And all of a sudden you're bringing out monogrammed melon balls. Oh, like we're going to fit in with the neighbors now. Again, class demarcation. This is what happens. You bring it out for the masses and then this separation starts to rise up. And that's when, that's when I got involved, Dano. Well now Claire, when you say you got involved, that makes it sound like there was political action that needed to be taken.

And that's certainly how we felt. Cheryl, my second wife and I, who had the monogrammed gift, you know, we wanted to be town boosters. We wanted to be on the PTA, but we were those hoity-toity Sullivans, Cheryl and Dano. And that was C and D on the monogram. And Cheryl spells her name with an S. So we're high class with a misspelled monogram, but you know, the neighbors don't see that. They don't take the time to find out how does Cheryl spell her name. So I feel like it was for us, it was just a line in the sand that could not be crossed. And we eventually had to move to another town and leave the melon baller behind.

You left your melon ball at the home when you left? So somebody else is now in possession of that melon baller? It was a requirement in the HOA that we had to find someone else with the same initials. So the monogram would, would match. So of course that's slowed down the sales process. But Dano, let's, let's return to, um, we're back in a heyday. We're back in a melon ballin' heyday. And I'm not that I want to take credit for that. Um, I do think that my books have brought to light a lot of the troubled history and a lot of the celebrated history. But the reason to bring melon balls back now is not just to lift up the public and let everyone know that they are worthy, not just of melon balls, but of serving an entire family with one melon.

There are more melons now than there ever have been. Different types of melons. There's, obviously the watermelon and the cantaloupe, but I can't even think of any others right off the top of my head, which I guess is why we have an expert on the program today, listeners. Gosh, and we've got the honeydew. We've got the recently honey don't. Yeah. The Carl Perkins flavored melon. That's right. We've moved into some savory melons. And I say, we, you know, I have a plantation, a melon plantation in Hawaii. That makes me feel clear that there might be a little bit of a conflict of interest as someone who is out promoting the melon baller to find out that you, um, have an interest in maximum melon sales as well.

Does seem like there might be a little bit of, um, one hand washing the other. Well, Dano, would not a doctor sell a vitamin? Dead Sea Scrolls 714. What would Jesus do in this? Think what the money he's made off of the Bible. I mean, I don't see any conflict of interest there. Yeah. Point taken. You know what? I do want to let your listeners know that not only do melons have all kinds of health benefits with vitamins and minerals and potassium, low in sugar, high in hydration, but when they are in their bald form, it's a concentrated burst of potassium. It's like anything in pill shape is automatically more powerful than the original thing that the pill is made from.

And what is a melon ball, but pill shaped melon? That's it. It's pill shaped melons. Easy to pop. Um, we've got some listener mail coming in right now. Sure. Sure. Few folks asking, um, longtime listener, first time writer in Alberta. Wherever that is. Yeah. Oh, it's, I'm sorry. It's someone named Alberta. Oh, also from Alberta. It's Alberta in Alberta. Shopping at Albertsons says Alberta. Okay. Have the option of many melon ballers. What to look for in top quality MB. I assume that means melon baller. Oh, right, right, right. Signed Alberta in Alberta at Albertsons.

That is a great question. Alberta, Alberta, Alberta. You know, what I recommend is a porcelain shell around a stainless steel core. The stainless steel is going to keep the chill, but the porcelain, it's just unbreakable and it comes in so many bright colors. I mean, I would check at www.ballyourmelons.com. If you really want to get a value top quality melon baller, and we have them in various sizes, various colors. I didn't even think to ask about that, Claire. What would be the advantages of a melon ball that's bigger or smaller than another melon ball?

Well, you know, we like to give a bigger scoop for say a watermelon. That's a, that's a giant, that's the king of melons. So the final ball size is correspondent to the original melon size. That's right. Yeah. I love that there's a mathematical formula because going back to the biblical times when Jesus created the geometry of the ball itself. And that was Dead Sea Scrolls 7.14. Wonderful. Another listener writes in, this is someone called Alberta from Alberta. Okay. A longtime listener, second time writer, she says, wants to know, Claire says Alberta, much of your description of a melon baller reminds me of another tool, the ice cream scoop, what are some of the major differences and what should I be aware of?

Oh no. Alberta, I think you hit a sore spot here. Oh my gosh. I mean, the ice cream scoop. Do we have another hour on this podcast to go into the satanic, clunky, horrifying ice cream scoop? Is it really that bad? I mean, if the melon baller is of Jesus, are you literally saying that the ice cream scoop is of Satan? I'm saying, have none of your listeners read the revelations? Well, what I'm asking is if Jesus is to Satan, what is to God? This is more Jesus math. Oh, I remember this from my Christian school SAT. If Jesus is to Satan, as a melon baller is to an ice cream scoop, what is God?

Was that your question? Well, that's the essence of my question. And what is the essence of God? I guess. A melon baller is the missing rib of Eve, a curving, comforting scoop of nutrition. An ice cream scoop is a hollow ball for a fatty animal juice that's hardened. We have another letter coming in. This is from someone named Alberta in Alberta. First time listener she writes, third time writer. Nice to hear from you again, Alberta. Alberta says, Claire, your description of an ice cream scoop and a hardened animal juice has strangely actually tempted me. I worry for my eternal soul.

Any advice, signed Alberta in Alberta. Oh, see, that's the actual problem with even talking about, you know, hardened cold animal juice, that it's the road to perdition. Claire, I noticed that the first five volumes of your book are dedicated to the church. Volume six, however, carries no such dedication. And I wonder if some of your views that have come to light in the last couple of minutes here of our podcast maybe had some bearing on the church's view of your views. We're just in our last minute or two here. If you want to address that controversy. Yes.

I lost the imprimatur of the church on my final volume of the history of melon balling, and they did force me to retract a lot of the claims that I had made first about the Dead Sea Scroll saying anything about melon balls and two about the Last Supper and three about any of my views about Jesus and or Satan. And what I find shocking is as I flipped through volume six, it's just page after page, handwritten in what looks like Sharpie or magic marker. You did this to Galileo. You did this to Galileo. You did this to Galileo. I'm not sure that it's really getting across your message of the melon baller.

Well, the message of the melon baller is this is what they did to Galileo. I mean, I consider Michelangelo, Galileo, like the first melon baller prototypes. In fact, Michelangelo does have a design drawn on one of his sketch pages and just the mere image of a melon baller is enough to send the church into a tizzy. Look, people can believe what they want, but you know what doesn't lie? Your taste buds. And if you go to www.ballsballs.com I think that's a different website than you gave us before. And I'm, uh, wait, I'm sorry. We're getting a note right now from Alberta in Alberta, a longtime listener, fourth time writer.

She says, Claire, I tried the website you just gave out and good God, I have converted right now back to Christianity. Please stop the bleeding from my eyes. Never let me see this again. Thank you. Thank you. Exclamation points. Yes, they did this to Galileo. I'm glad they did it to you. This is one soul you've saved with melon balling today. Alberta in Alberta. How about that? That's a great note to end on. I think everybody needs to make up their own minds, taste their own tastes. And, uh, again, if you think that Eve had a taste of melon instead of a taste of apple, you're in the right camp in my book.

I would like to thank Claire Sarah, my melon balling baby for coming on the podcast today. Claire, it's been a real treat. And I mean that in the tasty sense to have you on the program. The expertise spelled wrong podcast is free and like the Amish all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funny podcast.co and follow us in your favorite podcast app. Like the expert podcast listener. We know you are. We're back in a melon ball and heyday melon ball and heyday melon ball. And to me, my melon ball and heyday ball them up and don't be blue and smile.

My honeydew though. I can't elope with you or else I shall be melon balling too. Um, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.