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The watermelon basket was just the kind of trendy 1970s dish that gave the melon baller a bad name. In truth, it is an extremely handy tool when used in reasonable ways.

A large melon baller can be used to make tiny scoops of sorbet, or balls of banana to layer on top of a tart. These kinds of finishing touches do not take that much time and can make a big difference in the visual appeal of what you're serving.

It is just as useful as a corer. In restaurant kitchens, melon ballers are used to remove seeds from cucumbers and to core apples and pears. On a cucumber halved lengthwise, the melon baller removes the seeds in a neat, rounded trough. With halved fruit it scoops out the core in a clean, round half sphere--impossible using a paring knife.

Melon ballers can also be used to create a cavity for stuffing.

The tool's main drawback is that it creates a lot of waste. But there are things to be done with that, too. With strawberries, for instance, use what you core from the fruit to make a sauce. Scraps from vegetables can be added to soups, or finely minced into a garnish. Leftovers and excess juice from melons can be transformed into sorbet or granita or strained and added to a cocktail for flavoring.

It is unclear when exactly the melon baller was invented, but it began appearing in cookbooks in the 19th Century. At that time in France, cooking was becoming a much more precise craft, and the labor required of the diner was reduced to a minimum.

Tools like the melon baller were created so that melon would not need to be scooped at the table, said Burt Wolf, who is revising "The Cooks' Catalog," which he wrote with James Beard, Barbara Kafka and Milton Glaser. Serving balled melon was also a way to show off the wealth of the host and the depth of his kitchen staff.

Some classic uses for the melon baller are actually worthy of revival. Pommes Parisienne, for instance, is horrendously time-consuming--potatoes are carved into tiny balls, blanched and browned in butter. But it's a delicious idea. Such painstaking manipulation of so humble a food makes for a whimsical presentation, and the small round shape offers a greater surface area to be made crisp and buttery. The same can be done with zucchini and carrots.

The melon baller is one of the few tools that manufacturers seem to have mastered. I tested 11, and the only significant differences were in the prices, which ranged from $7 to $21. What is important is for the edge of the baller to feel thin and sharp, for the tool to seem sturdy and for the handle to feel comfortable in the palm.

Lots of sizes and shapes are available. Some melon ballers make spheres the size of peas, others as large as walnuts. There are double-ended ballers, scalloped ones, even top-shaped ones.

The effectiveness of unusually shaped ballers depends on the texture of the food. With cantaloupe, the shapes turn out distinct, but they are completely lost with ice cream, which melts and blurs the shape almost immediately. And potatoes are simply too hard: shaped ballers get wedged in them and cannot be fully turned.

No matter what shape or size the melon baller is, success depends almost entirely on technique. If you want perfectly smooth spheres or tops or ovals, you must press down firmly and make two complete rotations with the tool.

And when scooping ice cream, it is a good idea to immerse the baller in hot water before plunging it into the ice cream. If you work quickly enough, you can create the world's smallest ice cream sundae.

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