Beyond Guacamole

I love avocados. Not just because they taste and feel so pleasant to eat, but also because they’re so damn freaky.

You can’t just decide you feel like eating avocado because chances are there’s never a perfectly ripe one around exactly when you want one. At the grocery store they’re either all in a big over-ripe pile or in a big, green, hard-as-rock pile.

So you buy a green one and wait. It could take a day; it could take 5 days. You never know when the avocado will decide it’s ready to be eaten. Wait a little too long and it’s all slimy and brown. Don’t wait long enough and it’s all hard and woody.

If you’re really in love with avocados you can buy one every 3 days or so and then you’ll have a pretty good chance of having a perfectly ripe avocado on hand close to the time you actually want one.

And when it’s perfectly ripe, there’s almost nothing better. Creamy, buttery avocado in guacamole;  on a sandwich;  in sushi;  in a whole variety of salads; in place of mayonnaise in egg or tuna salads;  in gazpacho; or straight up with a little lime juice.  Mash it with lemon juice, salt & pepper and spread on warm toast. Make great ice cream, milk shakes or smoothies.[1]

 If you only want half an avocado one day, slice it in half around the pit with the peel on; twist and separate the two halves. Loosely wrap the half that still has the pit embedded in it in some wax paper. As long as the pit is in the fruit you can save it like that for a day or two. I only found this out a short while ago and wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

The pit apparently has magical preservative powers or something. And, speaking of which, what’s the deal with that pit anyway? It’s huge.  It’s got to be good for something besides sticking toothpicks in and suspending over jars of water to make it grow into a tree, right?

Well…if you cut it open, you can sometimes get a milky substance out of it that becomes red when exposed to air. The Conquistadors used this stuff as writing ink way back in the 16^th Century. You can, too.

Anyway, because of that large pit, avocados are considered something of an evolutionary anachronism, according to wise Internet resources.

There is no animal large enough to eat avocados and disperse its seeds by pooping it out all over town like they with other large fruits. Not since the Pleistocene era have there been animals large enough to poop out  avocado pits. If humans hadn’t taken over the cultivation of avocados they’re now be as extinct as the Giant Ground Sloth – a famous pre-historic avocado lover. 

 There are almost 300 calories in one avocado with 75% of those calories coming from fat and yet avocados are said to help promote weight loss! How could this be? I don’t know, look it up. This is not a scientific blog.  I have heard, though that it has something to do with the fact that they’re very high in monounsaturated fats.

The avocado fruit, tree bark and leaves are toxic to most animals and can be unpleasant for people with latex sensitivities.

The Aztecs worshiped avocados as a sex and  fertility fruit. The word “avocado” comes from the Nahuatl (Astecan) word “ahuacatl” which means testicle.

Aztec virgins were confined indoors during the harvesting of the testicle fruit so they wouldn’t be accidentally deflowered by them or something.

 I reckon Aztecs either  had much smaller avocados back then or testicles have shrunk a great deal over the centuries and that’s why Aztec guys always wore those long robes instead of jeans.

Centuries later, people consider avocados to be an aphrodisiac and a remedy for erectile dysfunction. Nice, god-fearing people were once forbidden from purchasing or consuming avocados out of fear of becoming raging sex fiends. It’s true.

And finally and most interestingly, the Spanish word for lawyer, “abogado” (or avocat in French or avvocato in Italian or even advocate in English) comes from the same root as the Aztec word for testicle. 

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 [1] If you have any new and exciting avocado recipes, I’d love to hear about them.

UPDATE: I wasn’t going to include this recipe initially because it sounds unpalatable to me, but I’ve been told by others that it sounds amazing, so here it is. A variation on key lime pie using avocados and much, much easier:

Avocado Pie

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 medium sized Hass avocado
• 3 1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
• heavy (whipping) cream, whipped without sugar
• graham cracker pie crust made with brown sugar (use recipe on box of graham crackers)

In a blender mix milk and avocado thoroughly and then blend in the lemon juice. Pour this IMMEDIATELY into the graham pie crust as it sets very rapidly! Add unsweetened whipped cream ontop and refrigerate for a few hours. (This pie is so sweet to start off with that unsweetened cream works well).