When I was a kid, living in South Florida, it never crossed my mind that people lived in other places that didn’t have the wonderous bounty of delicious nature available to them.
In my Grandmothers yard alone were cerenum cherries, oranges, mangos, guavas, kumquats, mulberrys and of course, my favorite of them all, avocados.
You must understand something. I was a full-grown adult before I saw those gnarly little black things that most people find in the supermarket today, sold as an avocado. I still don’t care for them, even though they are said to contain more oil and more fat content. In my eyes, they are imposters, the whole fruit being barely the size of a seed from the avocados that fell from my grandmothers tree.
My favorite way to eat them was to just peel, slice an add salt. Occasionally a bit of lemon juice, but usually just salt. My 2nd favorite way to eat them was in a sandwich. In those days, we ate Wonder Bread, a marvelous soft, white bread that could hold copious amounts of peanut butter and guava jelly, but was also quite good with thick slices of avocado, buried in a nice layer of Miracle Whip, and lightly dusted with salt.
Yesterday was Cinco De Mayo, a major latin holiday, and I read an article on Slate.com about guacamole. That, of course, brought to mind my favorite fruit, the Avocado.
Since it grows on trees, it is a fruit, more specifically classified in the same family as cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel. In South Florida, you might also hear them referred to as an Avocado Pear, or an Alligator Pear. The ones that grow in Florida are more pear-shaped than round, but I’m not sure why they are referred to as an Alligator Pear, because their skin is usually a smooth green, and not the knobby dark green or black of the Texas or California fruit.
Another thing a lot of people don’t realize is that avocados do not ripen on the tree. They will fall, usually because of the wind, but they are hard and inedible – just like what you find at the supermarket most of the time. If you want an avocado salad, you need to have purchased them a few days ago, because it usually takes a few days on the counter, out of the direct sun, before they’ll ripen.
Until recently, I was unaware that in some cultures, the avocado is sweetened and eaten as a desert fruit. Eww! No one I’ve ever known has eaten them that way, although I suppose I should at least try a few preparations before I turn my nose completely up at the thought. The concoction on the right is an Indonesian-style avocado milkshake, with chocolate syrup.
In Morocco, it is chilled and sweetened with confectioners sugar, mixed with milk and orange flower water. In Iran, it is smeared on ones face as a skin rejuvenator.
75% of the calories in an avocado come from monounsaturated fat, the same kind of fat found in olive oil. It has 35% more potassium than a banana, and is also rich in the B-Vitamins, as well as E and K, and have a high fiber content. Studies have shown after a 7-day diet high in avocado, some patients showed a 17% decrease in cholesterol, and an 11% increase in HDL, and it seems to contain natural anti-bacterial agents.
None of that mattered to me as a kid – it just tasted good, no matter how it was fixed. Surprisingly, we never ate guacamole – and rarely had it in salads. Just naked was fine with us most of the time, and we ate them until we couldn’t eat any more.
I’m looking forward to a return to Florida, where you can usually find avocados inexpensively, or even free if you have a neighbor with a tree. I’m still not sure sure about that milk-shake thing though.