IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

Avocados.

They’re quite a mouthful with different names, colors, and shapes. Fortunately, under the peel they’re basically the same.

Think it’s a vegetable? Wrong. An avocado is a single-seed berry (fruit); more like a mango than a celery stalk. The botanic name is persea americana. It’s a tropical tree native to Mexico, Central and South America. Today this green berry is grown around the world in subtropical climates.

Avocados don’t like the cold.

Ask Oprah.

In an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, Oprah Winfrey confessed, “I travel with my own bread and bring my own avocados.” Where does she get them? Oprah has an avocado orchard, located in Montecito, California – her primary residence.

I wonder if she shares them with Megan and Harry?

Avocados have a much longer history than Oprah’s orchard. They pre-date humans. Avocados were too big to swallow; only critters like giant ground sloths (12 feet tall, weighing 4 tons – see below) and mammoths (10-12 feet tall, weighing 6-8 tons) could eat them whole. Herbspeak noted that “avocados shouldn’t exist.” The pit and skin are “highly toxic to a wide range of animals, birds, horses, cats, dogs, rodents, you name it . . . except humans.” They speculated that “avocados managed to survive long enough for humans to come around.”

Food historians believe that avocados had become a staple food of pre-Columbian civilizations, like the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, thousands of years ago. The Aztecs called them ahuacatl because they grew in pairs, believed they were aphrodisiacs, and looked like human male testicles.

I wonder what Oprah would say about that.

The Spanish Conquistadores discovered ahuacatl in the sixteenth century. When they returned to Europe they introduced the fruit. Unable to pronounce the name, the Europeans called them aguacate.

In 1696 the English version became avocado. Eventually they adopted the phrase alligator pears – perhaps a euphemism for ahuacatl?

It’s all in the name.

Avocado cultivation spread around the world. When it hit California, they didn’t like the old name. It was time for a rebrand.

Meet Rudolph Hass.

Rudolph Gustave Hass was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He quit school when he was 15 years old and later married Elizabeth Schuette. They had five children. Hass moved his family to Pasadena, California in 1923.

Hass sold “Real Silk Hose” (socks and ties for men) as a door-to-door salesmen. Then he “graduated” to selling washing machines. In 1925 he got a job as a mail carrier with the Pasadena Post Office, making 25 cents an hour.

One day Rudolph was reading a magazine that had an illustration of an avocado tree with dollar bills hanging from its branches. Hass had an idea. He took all his money, plus a loan from his sister, and bought a small avocado grove. Hass experimented with his trees, grafting new varieties. One tree stood out – producing the yummy fruit we love today.

It was called the Hass Avocado Mother Tree.

It produced a fruit with bumpy black skin and a richer, nuttier taste than the fuerte, the most common variety in those days. Rudolph grew more trees like The Mother.

In 1935, Rudolph patented the Hass Avocado. It became the leading variety in California. According to Steph Kuyfman in babbel.com, today “about 95% of the avocados grown in California, and 80 percent of the avocados consumed worldwide, are Hass avocados.” (see below)

You might call it an avocado love fest.

If you’re not eating a Hass avocado what is it called? Avocados from Mexico reported “There are more than 500 types of avocados in the world. The exact number . . . is impossible to nail down, as new variations are constantly being created.”

Hass is the leader. You can find other varieties such as fuerte (pear-shaped and oily texture), Maluma (dark purple), and Pinkerton (oblong shape with easy-to-peel skin). Head to Australia for Gwen; try a long neck called Russell; or Galil from Israel.

If you want to prepare avocados in dishes beyond guacamole and salads, check out Amazon’s 9,000 books under “avocado” including a coloring book (for kids and adults), Better Homes and Gardens 100 Ways to Eat More Avocados, Blade Javion’s Growing Avocados, and Lauren Paige Richeson’s Avocado Obsession.

There’s also jewelry, plushies, toys, costumes . . . anything you might find interesting.

Check out photos of the Guinness World Record for the largest avocado display (totaling 86,764 pounds), tune in to the annual World Avocado Congress, or attend one of the many avocado festivals around the world.

When you’re eating avocado toast, guacamole with corn chips, avocado oil on your salad, or an avocado milkshake, thank the giant ground sloths and mammoths who kept it going.

Enjoy!