Cantaloupe Pie: An Experiment

I was sorting through some old recipes the other day, and came across this card for Cantaloupe pie, from the Pie of The Month Club. Once a month, members of the club receive a quirky, historical, and/or rare pie recipe on a postcard with original pie art. Heather gave me a membership a few years ago, and perhaps one day Sue Anne, Pie-of-the-Month Club Maven, will post here herself!

I had half of a large cantaloupe in the fridge, so I decided to give it a try even though (as Sue Anne says on the card) the idea of cooking a cantaloupe sounded a little strange, as melons' most attractive attributes are their refreshing juicy coolness. But you don't know until you try. Here's the recipe from the POTMC...

Cantaloupe Pie:
9" pre-baked crust (used recipe at right)
1/4 c. flour
3 eggs, separated
3/4 c. sugar
2 tblsp. butter
6 tblsp. sugar + 1/2 tsp. vanilla for meringue
1 large, VERY RIPE cantaloupe or muskmelon

In a medium saucepan mix half the sugar with melon and cook until melon is tender and mash-able. Mash the melon to a lumpy pulp. Mix flour with remaining sugar, add beaten egg yolks and butter. Add to mashed melon and return to heat briefly until just starting to bubble. Remove from heat. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Add 6 tblsp. sugar and vanilla and keep beating until stiff peaks form. Pour warm melon filling into pie shell. Cover completely with meringue, sealing to edges. Brown in oven (10-20 min at 325 F). Cool. Cut. Eat.
The meringue set up nicely, but it took some effort to mash the cantaloupe and the butter sort of congealed (insert "can't elope" joke here).
I invited Neale and Emily to come over for dinner followed by a cantaloupe pie taste test where we documented our first bite reactions:Neale's first bite...don't let this face mislead you, the man had seconds! Emily's (W.) first biteMy first bite. PEZ?

Despite the trepidation in our expression, we all agreed that the flavor was great, but it was strange to be eating cantaloupe warm, especially still in chunks. Our consensus is that cantaloupe pie would make an excellent icebox pie, with the melon pureed, and the whole shebang chilled for an hour or two.

We followed our experiment with some bananagrams.