Yeah, it’s kind of “vegetable butter” to me. Its flavor is mild, but it certainly has a flavor. I’m not sure how I would describe it, though. Slightly grassy, perhaps?
I don’t get the appeal of avocados. But then again, I don’t get the appeal of durian fruit, unsalted butter, or (especially) the supposed appeal of putting olive oil on bread. My wife loves the texture and taste of fatty, creamy foods, though.
Yes, I think “vegetable butter” is a good description.
Even the Haas avocados taste like something to me. Not like grass; like avocado. I’ve had some that taste better than that, but living where I do I’ve probably never had a really good one.
I don’t much like guacamole; but I do like avocadoes eaten plain, or added onto a sandwich or into a salad.
They do have more flavor when at the right degree of ripeness. If I accidentally cut an unripe one, that is pretty near tasteless. Maybe the OP’s not eating them ripe enough? But I do think different people’s taste buds do vary – and vary at different ages; some things that nauseated me when I was a child taste great to me now, and some things I used to like then now taste unpleasant.
As far as cilantro – the first year I grew it, I thought it smelled like something unpleasantly rotting; I had to check with somebody used to it to make sure it was supposed to smell like that. I rather like the smell now. I don’t know whether it would have tasted soapy to me while it smelled bad to me, as I wasn’t about to taste the stuff until my opinion of the smell changed; but it doesn’t taste soapy now.
For me, cilantro was definitely soapy the first dozen or so times I had it. I kept thinking somebody didn’t quite rinse out the bowl for the salsa/pico de gallo at the Mexican restaurants I went to. But, eventually, I just go used to it. Now, I could still identify some of that soapiness, but it doesn’t bother me. I love it. Cilantro is one of my favorite herbs.
I’ve been running into avocado for 30 years now here in CA. In restaurants, home made guac, on sandwiches. My ex had a tree and would treasure the good ripe ones, gifting them to me like fine wine. We’d share some together and she’d get that “to die for!” expression on her face and I’d politely share the avocado with her when prompted, while internally going “meh” at the (lack of) taste.
Well, it’s pretty difficult to miss the vomit smell, garbage taste, and slug like texture of durian. And yeah, I was with a friend who positively cooed over the stuff.
The smell and texture are pretty bad, but the ones I’ve tasted have been pretty bland: creamy, a tiny bit sweet, and a tiny bit garlicky. Maybe I’m missing the durian gene.
I will admit when I ate some I caught hints of what you describe. But it was overlain with something unpleasant like the fruit had gone bad several days ago.
sqeegee? Do you generally have a sense of what you are eating? When I eat, I am routinely aware not only of the flavor of foods, but I also have a sense that this food is meaty/rich/fresh/filling/etc. Like, I had a starbucks frappechino once, and I knew damn well it was chock-a-block full of calories, because that’s what my body told me while I ate it.
Do you have that sort of sense about your food? Because I wonder if you just didn’t learn how nutritious avocado is despite eating it a lot.
I think you mean ‘fatty’ when you say ‘nutritious’. Spinach is nutritious, but there’s people that don’t like it. Likewise beans, lots of protein but my son categorically hates beans.
Meanwhile, I love fatty foods. Hamburgers, bacon, fudge. All fatty. But I can’t imagine drinking cooking oil, also fatty. And what that has to do with avocado is pretty unclear.
So much for that theory; that’s obviously not it.
Sometimes I’m wrong. 
I have eaten avocados all my life. I have avocado at least once a day if not more. They have been a part of our diet forever. In our part of the world they were known as “la mantequilla de los pobres” or poor people’s butter. Now since they have become a trend in the US and Europe and they are no longer a food of the poor.
Fat is a nutrient. Calories are the primary nutrient, and I think we learn which foods have readily digestible calories. But I think our bodies also learn which foods have protein and which are rich in vitamins.
Spinach is bitter as well has having a lot of nutrients, and so we get mixed messages – nutritious but also toxins. Beans can be hard to digest, ditto, nutritious but also stomach discomfort. But most people who eat enough beans to get a lot of their protein from beans lean to love beans.
I eat avocados whenever I can, in many combinations. I am rarely bored.
My bolding. I read that in the leading production state, Michoacán around 2013, …cultivation is complicated by the existence of drug cartels that extort protection fees from cultivators. They are reported to exact 2000 Mexican pesos per hectare from avocado farmers and 1 to 3 pesos/kg of harvested fruit.
Are cartels a major cause of raising prices beyond the means of pobrecitos?
Oh, you betcha. My phone is spazzing the links, but there’s an “Adam Ruins Everything” episode and numerous NPR articles. Sorry, my link copy pasta had an epic fail or I’d shove a few URLs here.