(or avocado pear) Persea americana, a fruit unlike any other, with its buttery flesh and single large stone. Of all fruits the avocado is highest in protein and oil content. The latter may reach 30%; and the avocado is therefore a powerful source of energy.
The avocado tree, a member of the laurel family, is native to subtropical America, where it has been cultivated for over 7,000 years, as archaeological remains demonstrate.
There are three original races of the species. The Mexican type, which was called by the Aztecs ahuacatl (which meant ‘testicle’ and is the source of ‘avocado’), has a plum-sized, smooth-skinned, purple or black fruit, and foliage with an anise scent. It matures in the autumn and is hardier than other kinds. The Guatemalan type bears larger fruits with a rough skin which is green, purple, or black in colour; these fruits mature in spring or early summer and store well. The W. Indian type has the largest fruits, up to more than 1 kg (2 lb 3 oz) in weight with a smooth skin, usually light green and of medium thickness.
All cultivated avocados are descended from these three types. Many of them are hybrids; for example Fuerte, a prominent Californian variety, and Hass, now the leading cultivar in California, are both Guatemalan/Mexican hybrids. In all there are now at least 500 varieties, of various shapes, sizes, and colours, grown in many countries around the world.
One of the first Europeans to taste the avocado was Fernández de Oviedo, who noticed its external resemblance to a dessert pear, so ate it with cheese; but other Spaniards preferred to add sugar, or salt and pepper. They all praised it. The same applies to the first mention in English, in 1672, by W. Hughes, the royal physician, after a visit to Jamaica. He said that it was ‘one of the most rare and pleasant fruits of the island. It nourisheth and strengtheneth the body.’
However, despite such favourable comments, the avocado was slow to spread from its native region. For Europeans, it remained for a long time no more than a tropical curiosity; and commercial cultivation in N. America only began in California in the 1870s and in Florida from about 1900.
Avocados are now grown in Africa, Israel, Australia, Madeira, and the Canaries, as well as in many parts of their native continent.
The avocado ripens off the tree. If picked when fully grown and firm, it will ripen in one to two weeks in a warm room but much more slowly in a refrigerator. The fruit is ripe when it is faintly but perceptibly squashy, especially at the stem end.
The flavour of the avocado is subtle, but so mild as to be easily overwhelmed. It is often served in halves, with a vinaigrette dressing (or a stuffing of, for example, shrimp) in the hole left by taking out the stone.
Perhaps the best-known avocado dish is guacamole. So far as pre-Columbian use of the avocado is concerned, Sophie Coe (1994) comments:
The one recipe that we may be sure of is the Aztec ahuaca-mulli, or avocado sauce, familiar to all of us today as guacamole. This combination of mashed avocados, with or without a few chopped tomatoes and onions, because the Aztecs used New World onions, and with perhaps some coriander leaves to replace New World coriander, Eryngium foetidum, is the pre-Columbian dish most easily accessible to us. Wrapped in a maize tortilla, preferably freshly made, or even on a tortilla chip, it might ever so distantly evoke the taste of Tenochtitlan.
Avocado leaves, toasted and ground, are occasionally used as a mild spice; those of one variety have an anise-like flavour.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Coe, Sophie (1994), America's First Cuisines, Austin: University of Texas Press.
