Should there be, one day in your life, both a handful of still-warm-from-the-tree ripe figs and the juice-dripping flesh of a melon, go quickly to find leaves of mint, some good green olive oil, and the juice of a lemon to make this little salad. Use only flawless components and arrange them for someone wonderful with whom to rhapsodize over it. You might, then, need heady, appropriate conversation. You could choose to speak of Platina—one Bartolomeo Sacchi—the Vatican librarian and author, in 1475, of Platine de Honestate Voluptate. The work’s argument concerns the history of Roman cuisine and was the first officially published cookbook since those written during the Republic. Or you might want to chatter a bit about Cantalupo in Sabina—the Singing Wolf of the Sabines—once a papal garden property outside the Roman walls where a strain of tiny, orange-fleshed melons were cultivated, they, no doubt, being the precursors to those we call cantaloupe. Perhaps you might choose not to speak at all, thus distracting nothing from the sweet little figs.

Ingredients

　　4 to 6 plump, ripe green or purple figs

　　1 small, very ripe cantaloupe or other orange-fleshed melon

　　1 generous handful of fresh mint leaves

　　2 tablespoons finest extra-virgin olive oil

　　2 tablespoons just-squeezed lemon juice

　　Halve the figs vertically, not peeling them, and lay them, in some pattern that pleases you, on two large plates. Halve the melon horizontally, removing its rind and seeds, carving each half into 1/4-inch slices and laying these on the plates. Tear the mint leaves and strew the fruit with them. Drop the oil in tears over the figs and the lemon juice over the melon. Serve the salads with iced moscato or any fine, ambered sweet wine.

　　A Taste of Southern Italy