Traverse City has cherries. St. Johns has mint. In Howell, a melon is a cause for celebration.
For locals, there’s a special treat available only once a year during the city’s Melon Festival, and that’s melon ice cream.
On an early morning in August, dozens of volunteers worked in a kitchen at Howell High School for about an hour and a half, scooping pale orange ice cream from large tubs into thousands of individual serving size cups. The fruity scent of the dessert wafts through the air.
Howell Rotary Club member Brad Tate kept the energy up as everyone got closer to finishing
"We have a great team of Rotarians who have a system down, so they know exactly what they're doing, and then we just keep it fun," Tate said.
There’s not a clear story about how the Howell Melon, the key ingredient for this ice cream, came to be.
Some accounts say a drifter in the early 20th century brought seeds for the melon into the community. Others say a farmer cross pollinated different melon species to create the fruit.
Jordan Hilbrecht with Howell Recreation shares another version
"That fruit originated from a competition between some local growers that were trying to figure out the best melon. "
What ended up being the best melon looks a lot like a cantaloupe. But according to its fans, the fruit is sweeter, softer and tastes closer to a honeydew.
In the 1960s, a local family that ran an ice cream store downtown started incorporating the melon into ice cream
When that store closed, the family’s secret recipe ended up going to the Howell Rotary Club.
"We are happy to be able to bring this back to the festival because it's an important thing, this is something that people love, and it sells out every single year," said Rotary Club member Sandie Cortez.
She says that demand created a new problem.
"People want this ice cream, so we can't scoop it on day of. We just can't keep up with it ."
So every year, these volunteers come together before the festival to pack the ice cream.
One of the youngest scoopers, middle schooler Tilly MacIntyre says while it is fun to help out, the work does have its challenges
"Sometimes I get a little bit jealous scooping this because I really want to eat it," she said.
The Howell Melon Festival runs though Sunday August 17, and the Rotarians warn that once the ice cream is sold out, you’ll have to wait until next year for a taste.
