Avocado

A New World fruit, Persea americana, botanically a fruit, eaten both as a fruit or vegetable, native to Mexico, belonging to the Laureaceae family. It did not become popular in Europe until the middle of the 19th century, when modern transport allowed growers in California to market this fruit worldwide. The fruit's name comes from the Aztec ahuacatl, roughly translated as "testicle", which is most likely a reference to the avocado's shape. The Spanish conquistadors, obviously more prudish, censored the name: they translated the word phonetically as abogado, meaning "lawyer." Time distorted this to aguacate, meaning "green testicles", but the damage was done. Both the French and the Germans compounded the misconception. France's poire d'avocat and Germany's advokatbirne have the same meaning, "lawyer's pears." In 1527, the conquistadors returned to Spain with avocados. In 1653, Spanish priest Bernabe Cobe described three kinds of avocados - Mexican, West Indian and Guatemalan. He wrote that they come in hundreds of varieties, including round, pyriform and "necked" (like a crookneck squash), in green, purple, maroon and black, with skin textures that may be bark-like, scaly or smooth.

At 19, George Washington visited Barbados with his brother, Lawrence, who required a warm climate to recover from an illness. Young George sampled such tropical fruits as "agovado", which he notes as abundant and the most popular fruit.

Known early on as alligator pear, the many varieties of today's avocado range from pear-shaped to round. The two most widely marketed varieties are the Hass, rough-skinned and almost black; and the Fuerte, smooth-skinned and green. Avocados were introduced into southern Florida in 1833 by horticulturist Henry Perrine, who planted Mexican varieties on his grant of land south of Miami. While Mexicans used the fruit in avocado bread, guacamole and in other ways, the alligator pear was not be grown commercially until 1901. California planter R. B. Ord made the first commercially successful planting of avocados in that state, using Mexican trees in Santa Barbara. But it's Rudolph Hass we have to thank for the Hass variety of avocado, the only variety that is grown year-round. The mail carrier bought the seedling in 1926 from A. R. Rideout of Whittier, California, and planted it in his yard.

After planting the tree, Hass planned to graft other varieties from it, but when the grafts didn't take, he considered cutting it down. His children talked him out of it, saying they liked the taste of the avocados it produced better than any others. So, he named the variety of avocado it produced for himself, taking out a patent in 1935 and entering into an agreement with nurseryman Harold Brokaw to promote the fruit. The patent expired in 1952, the year Hass died. By then, the Hass avocado had taken off because of its taste, durability and shelf life. It passed its green rival, the Fuerte in the 1960s and now accounts for about 80 percent of consumption, bringing in about $350 million a year.

The mother tree, the one to which every Hass avocado can trace its lineage, died of root rot in 2003 in La Habra Heights, California, at 76 years old. It was chopped down in September of that year. The black bumpy-skinned Hass is king of all avocados. Hass trees produce 95 percent of the avocados grown in California, which is the United State's top avocado-producing state, according to the California Avocado Commission. They also provide seedlings to growers worldwide.

High in vitamin C, thiamin and riboflavin, avocados are a good source of protein, with a higher fat content than most vegetables. A common half portion has 138 calories. California avocados that are picked from November to March have two-thirds less fat than those picked from September and October. They are less mature and have only two grams of fat, compared to six grams of fat. The fat in avocados is mostly monounsaturated, which is one of the fats most preferred by the body (easily digested, high in vitamins and minerals, and containing no cholesterol). Avocados will ripen quickly when placed in a brown paper bag with some flour and set in a warm place. Another method of ripening avocados is to place them in a plastic bag with a piece of banana peel or an apple.

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