The Devil's Avocado

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, I can’t stand it anymore. I thought about putting this in the Pit and calling it “Pitting Avocados”, but it’s not really all that enraging; it’s just mildly annoying.

I eat a lot of avocados. They make up a big portion of my diet. I buy them primarily at Mars grocery store in the Baltimore metro area and at Giant Food and Saubel’s grocery in southern York County, Pennsylvania.

My gripe is this: I can only ever get those small California or Mexican avocados and they are of middling to often poor quality. Like, seemingly ripe but on opening, hard and woody and / or way too ripe and brown and necrotic. I would like to find a place where I can get some big, juicy Florida avocados, but so far no soap (or avocados).

So, does anybody in my area know where I can get big, juicy nice Florida avocados on a regular basis? I’m willing to pay up to $4.00 per avocado, because as I said, they are a big part of my diet.

Thank you all in advance for your much-needed help.

2

Probably at one of these places.

3

IME California avocados tend to go brown and mushy on the inside fairly quickly, and the ones from Chile tend to be wood-hard. What I want to know is why stores seem never to have large California avocados. When I was growing up they were ‘always’ large. In recent years they seem to only be available half-size.

4

Okay I have to ask: Why avocados? I mean, I like a lot of different foods but none so much that a single food is a primary or even major part of my diet. I have to admit in my 48 years I have never eaten an avocado. I don’t even eat guacomole, ( a visual, texture thing mostly). Am I missing out on something here? If I choose to broaden my horizons and flirt with avocado addiction, how do I pick a good one? I am here in rural Wisconsin with few options, but I get to Chicago every month or so to visit my mom, surely I could get the good stuff there, if I knew what I was looking for.

5

Yes.

6

Seenidog, a properly prepared guacamole is the food of the gods, seriously. Of course, you’ll find a gazillion different recipes, but I like to keep mine really simple: 2 medium avocados, mashed with a fork, 1-2 Tablespoons finely minced onion, 1 diced tomato, 2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro, the juice of one lime and a generous amount of kosher salt. Just moosh it all together and prepare for a foodgasm. (Um, leave out the cilantro if you’re one of those poor lost souls for whom it tastes like soap.) Serve with really fresh tortilla chips for the best effect, although I have to admit that the Hint of Lime ones are really awesome with guacamole as well.

Avocados will hang on the tree, unripe, for years. Only after they’re picked do they begin to ripen - that’s why we can get them year 'round. There’s no such thing as “avocado season”. Whenever the pickers pick them, they’re fine. And, unlike tomatoes, they really do ripen, not just smooshify, on your countertop. To speed up the ripening, put them in a brown paper bag on your countertop. When ripe (about the same amount of give as the tip of your nose), use them immediately or get them into your fridge for a day more. Avocados come in many varieties, colors, and skin textures, so none of those are useful for finding a good one. Obviously scarred or blemished ones, or avocados with soft spots or bruises, should be avoided. Like most fruits, they should feel heavy for their size - really light ones have huge pits and not much flesh.

Creaky, my only advice to you is to ask the manager of your supermarket. He might have a reason he doesn’t order Florida avocados (cost?) or he might just not be aware that anyone in your area wants them.
Trivia note: avocado comes, through the Spanish, from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word ahuacatl, which means “testicle”. The reason why it earned this name should be obvious. :wink:

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Band name!

8

So give with the info, what do I look for? I am not much at picking out fresh produce. Lettuce, pea pods, carrots, green beans, fine. Any idiot can do that. Don’t even get me started on the fruit category. Thumping watermelons to find the good one? I suck. I could not pick out a good kiwi from a pack of rotten cherries.

In all seriousness, how do I select a good avocado? And what do I do with it once I have it? ( and no that place already has a waiting list of the things my wife has told me to put there…) Do you eat it like an apple or pear? Do you cut off the skin? Do you core it like a pineapple? Do you cook it?

9

Thanks for the info WhyNot, we cross posted a bit on that one. The question remains how do I select a good one, or know after obtaining one it has achieved the proper degree of ripeness?

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Sincronizada.

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Thank you for looking that up. The problem for me is those places are either too far for me to go because I hate to drive and do grocery shopping in more than one place… AND, those markets, except for one that I see, are in dicey neighborhoods (at least in my opinion) where it’s not worth it to go to buy avocados. That’s why I was specific about where I lived. I’m sorry, dude, I guess I should have been more specific. But thank you. :cool: Maybe they deliver. Maybe that one in Parkville; that’s closest. Again, it would be worth it. Otherwise I may have to obssess on another, more easily obtainable fruit.

seeindog: I discovered avocados kind of by mistake. I diet all the time. It doesn’t mean I eat necessarily in a healthy way, but I’ve latched onto certain foods that will help me maintain my weight, that I don’t get tired of, and that aren’t totally bad for me. Plain chicken breasts, Brie, low carb crackers and hamburgers, in addition to avocados, are it for me, with obvious occasional appropriate deviations. I also like plain thin crust cheese pizza when I get on a tear. I find that I can treat myself and if I don’t eat anything but the pizza for two days, I’m okay.

So that’s why avocados. I really like them and they don’t seem to make me fat and I never get tired of them. I cut them in half and sprinkle NoSalt on them and eat them with a spoon. Outstanding.

WhyNot: Yeah, I thought of that. I don’t have too much faith though… I already asked the managers of both my neighborhood Mars here in Baltimore and Saubel’s in York County to see about stocking stuff before, like Breyer’s low carb chocolate covered ice cream bars (another excellent diet-wise treat) and was given a weak “I’ll see.” Then nothing. Oh, well. I also went through a promise never delivered with Graul’s Market in Mays Chapel, also near me, but that time I was after Diet Chocolate bottled egg creams. They stopped stocking them all of a sudden and promised to order them for me and never did. But it was all good; I found a way to get them online.

Also, thanks for the info on the origin of the word. It’s cool to know stuff like that.

12

Gah! I edited out my entire post!

Selecting an avocado.

This is how I prepare an avocado: I cut off the top of the avocado (to get rid of the stem – just cut a little) and then cut lengthwise down to the seed. A twist of the halves separates them. I whack the seed with the knife and twist it to remove it. Use a fork or a spoon to scoop the meat out of the skin in one piece.

You can mash the meat for guacamole, dice it for use in salads, or slice it. I like avocado halves with some Miracle Whip. (Yes, yes. I know. But I like it. Actually, that’s about the only time I use Miracle Whip.) Or you could make a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado & Tomato sandwich. Those are great. Actually avocados are good on many sandwiches. Try it on turkey.

I was at the NCO Club for lunch one day and ordered a cheeseburger with avocado. The woman taking my order said, ‘You’re a native Californian, aren’t you?’ (This was at Edwards AFB, so it’s not unusal for a Californian to work there.) I told her I was, and asked how she knew. ‘Californians are the only ones who put avocados on sandwiches.’ Anyway, try avocado slices on your burger. (Speaking of Edwards, Wednesday was Mexican Food Day at the O Club. One woman from back East looked at the huge bowl of freshly-made guacamole and asked what it was and what you do with it. Poor thing!)

I’ve had some cooked foods with avocado, but I can’t remember what they were. I do remember the avocados were diced.

Here’s something I liked when I was a kid. The restaurant called it ‘La Cucuracha’, which is pretty disgusting if you think about it. But then a ‘burrito’ is a ‘little donkey’, right? Anyway, I’ve since learned this thing is called a ‘sincronizada’. Spread refried beans on a large flour tortilla. Add sliced ham and mild cheddar cheese. Top with another flour tortilla and heat in the oven until the cheese is melted. Slice it up like a pizza. Top with generous portions of guacamole and sour cream and garnish with a little shredded cheese and diced tomato. Now, remember I was a kid. I mixed the topping together and covered the top of ‘La Cucuracha’ with it. Eat it like you’re eating pizza. Tasty. :slight_smile:

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Johnny L.A.: man, that all sounds excellent. My boyfriend and I also like to put avocados in stuff. He spent two years in Miami years ago and got thoroughly addicted to avocados. I put them on chicken salad sandwiches and in salads for him, in addition to serving a halved avocado with Catalina dressing (blech, but hey, we all can’t be normal) as a side dish. I’m gonna try the cheeseburger thing. The avocado quesadilla thing sounds great too. Dude, I am so hungry. I supposed to be waiting for scrambled eggs (he’s gonna come over and make b’fast), but no show so far. Eggs and bacon or ham or sausage is one of my acceptable occasional deviations. However, it’s way past chow time and I am starving, so reading stuff like is tough! :smiley:

14

Well, I typed all this up while Johnny L.A. snuck in there, so I’ll still post it. One can never have too much avocado information. :wink:

Find one that has no obvious blemishes. If you want to eat it today, find one that’s got about as much give to it as the tip of your nose when you push it with a finger - that is, it should be soft, but not TOO soft. If your thumb splits the skin when you gently press, it’s way overripe, put it back and ignore the produce guy scowling at you for smooshing his nasty rotting avocado. If they’re all hard, that’s okay too, but you won’t want to eat it today. Just bring it home and leave it out on the counter (in a bag if you want to speed things up) and give it a gentle squeeze each day to test for ripeness.

When it’s ripe, it’s time to cut it open. The first thing you’ll notice when you try to do this is that there’s a huge pit in the middle, so you can’t slice all the way through. Just run your knife all the way around the avocado lengthwise. Then twist the two halves, and one will pop off the pit. To get the pit out of the other half, hold it firmly in your non-dominant hand (my left) and gently but firmly thwack the pit with the sharp edged blade of a sturdy, heavy knife. I like my French blade for this. It will stick in the pit, and now you have a handle with which to twist out the pit.

Now you have two halves with thick leathery skin on them. The skin is inedible. The easiest way to get the flesh out is just to scoop it with a spoon, scraping the skin clean on the inside. If you want pretty slices like on a restaurant salad, you can make parallel cuts through the flesh all the way to the skin, and sort of turn the skin inside out - the slices will pop our more or less intact (more when you’ve had some practice at it.) Similarly, you can cube the flesh by making parallel and them perpendicular cuts, again all the way down to the skin, and popping those out the same way. Oh, hey, look! A visual guide! The way they do slices looks like too much work for me, but it will certainly work

Avocado doesn’t taste like much on it’s own. A sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of lime juice will wake up the flavor.

Avocado will turn brown when exposed to air. Old Wives tell us that keeping the pits in a bowl of guacamole will prevent that, but I’m sorry to say that this is one time when the Old Wives are full of it. If you want to prepare guacamole or sliced avocado ahead of time, just wrap it tightly with plastic wrap touching the cut or mashed surface, and that will help keep it that lovely ugly green color.

15

Avocados are good on scrambled eggs. And don’t forget the pico de gallo.

16

You’re killing me. He still ain’t here. And I’m too lazy to cook this AM. Hunger may eventually force me to go for the low carb crackers and the plain avocado, but I have to get off my ass and away from this computer. Not ready to do that yet. Still hoping he’ll come in any minute. Don’t want to cook. Want to eat.

17

I’ll make what I call “deconstructed guacamole” as a salad for dinner- the kids love guac and this as well:

1-2 nice avocados, diced
1 small-med tomato rough chopped
1/2 small onion or a shallot finely copped
bit of cilantro chopped
1 lime, juiced
drizzle of live oil
salt to taste

arrange the avocado and tomato nicely on a plate and sprinkle with cilantro and onion

sprinkle with lime juice and oil, add salt to taste.

It’s quick and yummy!

18

Living where I do, Florida avocados are available all the time, but to me, their only advantage is size. I just don’t think they have all that much taste.
Hass work better for me. Is it the fat content? Dunno.

When I eat just a halved avocado, I usually just drizzle a bit of olive oil and grind a bit of salt and pepper, perhaps a dash of vinegar.

Guacamole is a fave:
2 mashed 'cados
one to one half chopped red onion
one chopped tomato
dash of cumin
salt to taste
chile pepper to taste
white pepper to taste
lime juice
chopped cilantro

My mom always enjoyed segments of graprefruit and sliced avocado arranged artfully on a plate, with oil and vinegar lightly drizzled on top.

According to Wikipedia, avocado leaves, bark, skin or pit are toxic to animals.
I had no idea. :eek:

19

The avocados I buy at CostCo are quite large. I slice them in quarters length wise, peel them, then dice them. I also have an avocado slicer similar to this one. With those, I cut in half length-wise and run the slicer along it.

I second Johnny L.A.'s suggestion of a turkey and avocado sandwich. Very good.

20

Almost exactly my recipe, but I like to toss some jalapeno in. This is one of those rare instances where I use the jar jalapenos, because they’re soaking in that juice. A teaspoon or so of stuff they’re soaking in is a nice add.