Avocado is the Color of California

California is (was?) a different country. It is big, trendy, and shiny—with skinny, trendy, shiny people. And after you've stared at the 20th Ferrari dealership, one of many that seem to sprout like weeds every quarter mile, and after you've checked into your hotel, and after discovering you are hungry, you head to the hotel's stylish, skinny restaurant for lunch. 

You are greeted by a friendly, tan, sun/fun-loving blonde who cheerifully hands you the menu, one with no less than 9 dishes containing avocado. There is roasted avocado, avocado toast, avocado-grapefruit salad, various types of fish with avocado, and even steak with avocado. You will wonder whether there is some regulatory requirement in California that restaurants are required to have a certain quota of avocado dishes on the menu. Surprise: more avocados are consumed in L.A. than anywhere else in America. 

Where did this ugly little rock star come from?

Sometime around 500 B.C.E, someone cultivated the avocado (persea americana) in Mesoamerica. The avocado gets its name from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl, which means "testicle." To the Aztec, avocados, which grow in pairs, were symbols of love and fertility. About 95 percent of the avocados you will eat in the U.S. are of the Hass variety. In fact, about 80 percent of the avocados consumed worldwide are Hass avocados. 

So, here I was in a bar, thousands of miles from home. Nothing on the menu looked familar or appealing to this Southern boy, until I saw that they offered a srimp po-boy. But...with avocado? Who puts avocado on a shrimp po-boy?!  But try anything once I always say. And, I must say, it wasn't too bad. 

I am not crazy about big junks or slices of avocado in most dishes. Avocado is better as the drummer rather than the lead singer. 

But when in Rome...