Crash at my pal Oleg's place, and you may get offered a halved avocado by way of a snack or a meal while he natters on about suppressors or f-stops or concealment holsters. I always thought that this was a charming eccentricity of his.
Now, I've never been the world's biggest avocado fan, having once likened their taste to that of a light green Crayola, but I was in the grocery store last night, wandering through the produce section and avocados were on sale and...
Y'know, a halved avocado, especially with a light dash of salt, is darned good food. I don't know if my taste buds have matured or what, but... YUM!
(Trivial Pursuit Factoid: Avocado made its appearance in sushi, specifically the California roll, as a stand-in for toro. Its taste and texture mimics the fatty bluefin tuna belly quite nicely.)
Salt and a bit of lemon juice.
ReplyDeleteLike squishy bits of heaven.
The lemon juice (a splash of a mild vinegar works too) is especially nice because it keeps the color nice. Otherwise they turn from crayola green to waste management brown as soon as they spend any time in the open air. Still yummy even after that, but just not as appetizing.
ReplyDeleteA fruit that is almost 100% fat can't be all bad, right?
...other interesting factoid...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado#Etymology
And it's the good kind of fat and decreases serum cholesterol.
ReplyDelete...I don't care if it causes strokes and brain tumors; it tastes dang good!
ReplyDeleteAdd some diced onion, tomato, lime juice and a couple of de-seeded & sliced serrano peppers, and you've got a nice batch of guacamole. A nice chunky fork-mashed guac is a good meal by itself, and it's the bomb when scooped up on warm salted tortilla chips.
ReplyDeleteEverybody I know likes 'em.... except me. I keep thinking I've never had a good one yet so I keep trying to find one and I'm still disappointed. To me they taste a bit like grease. If I have to add a bunch of stuff to choke 'em down I might as well leave out the avocado and save money.
ReplyDeleteCut the avacado in half and pull out the pit, splash some soy sauce in the hole where the pit was, add some drops of lemon juice, eat with a grapefruit spoon while dipping each piece into the sauce in the hole.
ReplyDeleteA perfect and easy snack at any time.
Verification worde: versesi - the above is versesi to do, and quite tasty.
Salt. Freshly ground black pepper. A couple of splashes of balsamic vinegar.
ReplyDeleteThere's a Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood that makes a tableside guacamole that is so good you'll hallucinate. Good hallucinations, mind you.
ReplyDeleteMy mom got me hooked on avocadoes as a child. Salt, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and a dollop of avocado on a saltine = instant Nirvana.
Regards,
Rabbit.
The salt is *key*. It wakes up your tastebuds and brings out all the good qualities of the fruit- otherwise it just tastes like what it is, green grease. An acid also helps, as others note.
ReplyDeleteTry 'em in an omelet with some white cheese. This is my new favorite omelet filling. We also now always put some in our BLTs, though "BLAT" is not the most appetizing meal name.
Avocado is a Pleistocene ghost ... the animals it coevolved with to distribute the seeds went extinct.
ReplyDeleteIt managed to survive because the fruit had enough oil content to interest predators and omnivores into eating it.
( and I think it's damned cool that Google put that entire book online for free ... )
My poor-man's tail mix:
ReplyDeleteCrush Fritos in bag. Pour onto avacado half as desired. Use outer skin as bowl, mash with fork and eat.
My bad ... it's only half the book, after looking at my copy.
ReplyDeletePretty slick ... just enough to get interested.
Try it with salt and black pepper.
ReplyDeleteOr add Worcestershire sauce (mainly vinegar and soy sauce).
ReplyDeleteGood Toro is far superior to that green slimy stuff. Far more expensive, too.
ReplyDeleteSlice or mash some avocado on toast, add salt and pepper. Yum.
ReplyDeleteLabRat,
ReplyDelete"We also now always put some in our BLTs, though "BLAT" is not the most appetizing meal name."
Had a BLTA for lunch the other day at Taste (creme brulee for dessert). How did I ever eat BLT's without avocado?
Sam,
Good toro is better than good avocado, but the availability of the former can get spotty. Every good sushi joint in the neighborhood last year went through a toro famine that rivaled the Great Oaxacan Ditchweed Drought of 1987.
Unfortunately, the bluefin populations that produce toro are SEVERELY crashed out... the toro famine may well be permanent before too long.
ReplyDeleteIts taste and texture mimics the fatty bluefin tuna belly quite nicely
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with you often, but: no. Not even close :-)
I can take you from whole avocado to delicacy in a bowl in under 30 seconds, and don't even have to hurry.
ReplyDeleteFresh lemon juice of fresh lime juice, dash of salt, and fresh-ground black pepper make a ripe avocado sing. Srsly.
A good avocado has a nutty flavor. I've been eating mine plain, but I think I'll try the salt and lime juice on it next time.
ReplyDeleteI like to put a little bleu cheese dressing on my avocado halves.
ReplyDeleteBecause, oh I dunno, it's not rich and oily enough on its own? Or maybe it's just that nearly everything is better with a little bit of bleu cheese dressing on it. And bacon.
Oldfart, I understand completely where you're coming from (even though I do like avocados). FOr years everybody around me raved about how they loved a tall cool glass of buttermilk and I never liked it at all. But that didn't stop me from trying it every year or so, just on the off chance that my tastes had finally matured to the point where I'd appreciate it too. Eventually I decided that, heck, I didn't like drinking buttermilk. Amazing the calm that descended upon me once I decided that not liking buttermilk didn't make me a bad person.
Fill the seed cavity with Catalina Dressing.
ReplyDeleteLabrat: They aren't crashed out ... they were starved out.
ReplyDeleteRogue fisherman are harvesting entire baitballs ... strip-mining the deep ocean.
Tuna populations are dieing off, and sharks are starving and heading to shorelines to eat, since the deep oceans are being converted into deserts.
Result: waves of shark attacks as pelagic sharks crowd into the 200 mile limits.
Wash it down with a good reposado-lime-drink on ice with a salted rim.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm feeling uptown I fill the cavity w/diced red onion and blue cheese bits, splash on a vinaigrette. Or, salt + big shot of Sriracha hot sauce. Reapply hot sauce as necessary.
ReplyDeleteAnother one who just can't seem to gag down an avocado or guacamole.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't help that it reminds me of what was on the bottom of my two parrots' cages...