It’s peak melon season. Here’s how to eat this late-summer treat.

The carefree days of early summer are now gone, giving way to back-to-school routines and a sweltering embrace of the dog days. I’m not much of a fan of late summer except that it’s peak time for melons.

As a child, I’d often take a greedy share of cantaloupe, sprinkling salt and lime juice on the fleshy fruit before devouring it.

As a young adult, I fell in love with melon dishes partnered with prosciutto and inventive sorbets, of which I first tasted years ago at the hands of chef Florent Marneau at Marché Moderne in Newport Beach. I still look forward to Marneau’s melon dish every August. It features large marble-sized samplings of Weiser Family Farms melons, thinly sliced ribbons of prosciutto accompanied with a port wine sorbet.

Mayfield in San Juan Capistrano serves a beautiful melon dish, which also showcases Weiser melons with Marcona almonds and speck instead of the traditional prosciutto. You can find the recipe below.

Seven years ago I took a deep dive into melon cultivation and learned to appreciate the people who tend to the labor-intensive crop. For now, melon is mainly harvested by hand.

I spent a couple of days in late summer 2017 in Firebaugh alongside a crew of workers harvesting a cantaloupe field at Del Bosque Farms in the San Joaquin Valley. I reported on how picking cantaloupe is so taxing that the labor force mostly consists of immigrants. U.S.-born citizen workers don’t last very long, Del Bosque said.

“ ‘You can’t pay me enough to do this kind of work,’ ” he recalled native-born workers often telling him.

If you happen to be traveling to the Bay Area on Interstate 5 in the coming weeks, you’ll want to stop at Del Bosque’s farm stand, just south of Los Banos, off of the W. Shields Avenue exit. There, you’ll find an array of mouth-watering melons, including heirloom varieties, such as the fragrant Galia or the flavorful Piel de Sapo (which translates to “toad skin”).

Closer to home, you can find Del Bosque cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew at Whole Foods Market. You may also find some of his Galia.

If you’re partial to heirloom and lesser-known hybrid varietals, it’s worth a visit to one of the many Southern California farmers markets where Weiser Family Farms sells. Often you’ll find Alex Weiser himself cutting samples of his magnificent melons. His family farms in the Tehachapi and Bakersfield area.

At Wednesday’s Santa Monica Farmer’s Market this week, Weiser was sporting a straw hat and moving quickly to serve a long line of customers at his stand.

There, he cut up and handed me a slice of the Ogen — also known as Ha-ogen — an aromatic and juicy heirloom melon that originates from the Middle East. It tastes sweet with a mild tropical taste.

Juicy and flavorful, I sighed with delight after biting into a slice of the pale, green melon flesh. I handed a slice to my 9-year-old daughter, Cora, who was tagging along for the day before she started her first day of fourth grade.

“Oh, my God!” she yelled with delight. She couldn’t help but ask for more of the messy treat. Juice dripped down her chin and even to her hair after every gleeful bite. We took some home.

Melons are considered to be part of the gourd family, but botanically they’re a type of berry with a hard outer rind.

Aside from the Ogen, other varieties, such as the sweet-and- tangy Bonny and honey-like Arava are a few of many in peak form right now. My absolute favorite is the Piel de Sapo, which has pronounced sweetness but a firmer texture that’s almost akin to jícama or an Asian pear.

Many of these melons will be around into September or even October. But it’s now that you want to really take advantage and indulge in this jewel of late summer.

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Mixed Melon Granita with Rosewater and Pistachios

This easy recipe by former cooking columnist Ben Mims requires no cooking. Instead, you’ll need some patience with freezing to get the granita at just the right consistency. If you don’t care for rosewater, replace it with vanilla extract. Orange blossom water also works nicely with the melon.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 15 minutes, plus 4 hours’ freezing time. Serves 8.

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

Sesame Salt With Coriander and Urfa Chile

If you enjoy a good melon with a bit of salt and lime juice as much as I do, this salt recipe by Mims kicks it up a notch. Again, it’s an easy no-cook snack that features urfa, a mild and smoky chile. This salt mix imparts a mole-like flavor that works well with honeydew and other melons with a similar profile.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 10 minutes. Makes 2/3 cup.

(Ben Mims/Los Angeles Times)

Mayfield’s Best-Summer-Melon With Speck

Inspired by melon season and access to great produce from nearby farms and quality speck from Sogno Toscano in Santa Monica, this easy and simple summer dish by Mayfield chef Jon Sarmenta hits the spot. The Marcona almonds lend a nice crunch to the sweet and tangy melons. You just can’t go wrong with this dish as a starter or a meal into itself.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 20 minutes plus overnight resting time. Serves 4.

(Courtesy of Mayfield )

Watermelon curry

Watermelon always provides a refreshing respite in the steamy days of summer. This recipe from chef-owner Geeta Bansal of Irvine’s Clay Oven restaurant elevates the seasonal fruit with turmeric, serrano and cumin for a flavorful take that can be served with basmati rice, quinoa or couscous.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour. Serves 4.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)