Don’t cook cantaloupe.

Most other kinds of fruit can be cooked and will still taste good, maybe even better.  Cooking is an ideal way to use scraps or fruit that’s too old to eat fresh. But not if it’s cantaloupe.

Cooking makes cantaloupe fragrant in a bad way.  It doesn’t smell like food anymore.  It’s like some kind of cloying perfume or big show-offy flower.

In addition, cooking makes the texture of cantaloupe soft, icky, almost slimy.  The mouth-feel combined with the overripe smell is guaranteed to set off primitive reflexes deep in the brain that scream, “This food is no longer safe to eat!!”

Even if you mix it with other fruits, cooked cantaloupe is hard to gag down.  I can believe that it might be possible to take it in an edible direction by cooking it with a lot of spices and onions and things, but I am not willing to experiment.  Unless you have a really promising-sounding recipe from someone you trust not to be a practical joker, I repeat, do not cook cantaloupe.  Ewww.

UPDATE: Maybe this recipe for Sunshine Bread will work!  I haven’t yet tried it myself, but the author and some commenters say it’s delicious!