Annoyingly, the one Italian in the conversation actually agrees with her, and I have no choice but to step up to the plate and defend my favorite summertime lunch. To call a spade a spade, prosciutto e melone is literally just prosciutto and melon, a delectable sweet and salty pairing that starts to appear on menus when the season’s first melons are harvested, usually sometime in June. 

Although there’s much to be said and debated about what constitutes an “Italian” dish, the first recorded pairing of prosciutto and melon can actually be traced back to this country. In the 2nd century, the Romans believed in the medicinal philosophy of Humorism, which claimed that body functions were regulated by chemical systems called “humors”, four of which were the fundamental elements of fire, air, earth, and water.