Avocados 101 - a guide
Fruit or vegetable?
Fruit.
The most protein of all fruits, more potassium than a banana, loaded with folate & vitamin E. Wonderful for your skin and hair ~ you really should be eating avocados!
How to tell when an Avocado is ripe
If it yields to the push of your thumb an avocado is ripe & ready to eat. If it is stone hard the moment is not yet. If mushy it is gone.
Usually the avocados in the market are 3 -4 days pre- ripeness.
You can accelerate the process by putting them in a paper bag with an apple or a banana. Those fruits give off an ethylene gas which speeds up ripening. (remember what I told you about fruit & cut flowers? - see here)
How to Remove the Pit from an Avocado
Cut the avocado in half length-wise.
Pull pieces apart
One side will have the pit stuck in it
Whack the pit with a chef's knife deliberately
Pull out the knife & the pit will be stuck to it.
Nice & clean!
How to Choose an Avocado
There are 400 varieties, but the Hass (sometimes Haas) has risen to the top as the premier avocado.
Hass are smaller, thicker skinned, purplish/black fruits with a stronger nutty flavor and a higher oil content. As a result they just taste better.
Look for the Hass label, I do.
Want to know how the Hass variety came to be? Well it was an accident really.
A postal worker, Rudolf Hass, bought a seedling from a California farmer. That farmer experimented with seeds. The Hass variety was a happy accident of his experiments & the result of Mr. Hass propagating the variety. Thank you Rudolph!
Hass are grown in California. In fact 90% of the avocados grown in the US are grown here.
Simple & Fresh Guacamole Recipe
Whipping up a bowl of guac is a regular thing here, so it needs to be simple, fresh & fast.
2 avocados
1/2 lemon squeezed
Maldon Sea Salt
a dash of hot sauce
TB fresh cilantro chopped (optional)
Cut & pit the avocados as described above. Scoop into a medium bowl. Squeeze on lemon, sprinkle on salt. Smash with a fork in a medium sized bowl. Stir & add a dash of hot sauce to taste.
Avocados ~ the Back Story
You know I love a bit of history. Want to hear how the avocado became the avocado?
May 5, 1915 farmers from all across California met in LA at the new & very posh Hotel Alexandria. (can you just picture it?). They met to decide the fate of a 'new crop'.
You see, by 1914 hotels & snazzy restaurants in San Fran & Los Angeles were buying up all the avocados they could get. Even up to $12.00 a dozen. Their customers wanted the nutty tasting fruits from Mexico, Central & South America.
The California farmers wanted in on it. On that day they renamed the fruit from "ahuacate" to avocado. (easier for Americans to pronounce) and established the California Avocado Association.
So your bowl of guac has its origins in that Spring day in 1915.
On this Cinco de Mayo, a few days shy of a 100 years later, toast to happy accidents & dip a chip into a big bowl of green goodness!
** Kelly **