Guacamole and
chips are the ultimate in Super Bowl Sunday comfort food nowadays. During
the Panthers/Broncos game, the California Avocado Commission tweeted its own
commentary, offering recipes that paired avocados with food and beverage
products being featured in advertising campaigns.[1]
Avocados
quintessentially define California cuisine. Yet, they are a relative
newcomer to the Golden State. Aztec culture favored avocados, but it
wasn’t until 1871 that Judge R.B. Ord, of Santa Barbara, successfully grew them
from trees he obtained from Mexico.[2]
Much
earlier in the vast machinations of the Columbian food exchange, the personal
physician of England’s King Charles II described the avocado in 1672 as one of
the “most rare and pleasant fruits of [Jamaica]. It nourisheth and
strengtheneth the body, corroborating the spirits and procuring lust
exceedingly.”[3]
Perhaps
babies were conceived on Super Bowl Sunday because of the avocado’s
aphrodisiacal qualities!
The
California mother of all avocados—the Hass avocado—is the subject of U.S. Plant Patent 139 granted
in August 1935. This article tells its story. Recent avocado patent
developments are also highlighted and a classic recipe for Avocado San Andreas may whet your mental palate.
Deep Avocado History
Scientists
trace that the first known human consumption of avocadoes to archeological
sites in the Puebla State of Mexico dating back to approximately 8000-7000 B.C.[4]
Spanish
conquistadores confronted avocados early in their conquests of Mexico and
Central and South America. Fernando de Oviedo (1478-1557) describes
avocados he encountered along the coast of Columbia:
“In
the center of the fruit is a seed like a peeled chestnut. And between this and
the rind is the part which is eaten, which is abundant, and is a paste similar
to butter and of very good taste.[5]
European
sailors called avocados midshipman’s butter because
they liked to spread it on their hardtack biscuits.[6]
Fuerte Avocados First
Take Hold
Avocados
received their first real PR boost from Henry Huntington, the nephew of Collis
Huntington, one of the “Big Four” who formed and owned the Central Pacific
Railroad and ushered in California’s first gilded age in the late 19th
century. Henry himself formed the Pacific Electric Railway, an interurban
railway serving the greater Los Angeles area.
Served
an avocado at Los Angeles’s Jonathan Club (which began serving them in 1907),
Huntington was so enamored of its taste that he pocketed some seeds as a gift
from the chef. They were planted at his San Marino estate, now the site
of the Huntington museum, library and botanical gardens.[7]
Those avocado “trees are considered that last surviving members of California’s
first commercial avocado grove.”[8]
The
first avocado to take hold commercially in California was the Fuerte
avocado. Fuerte means “vigorous” in Spanish. It
too came from Mexico. It is so named because it was the only avocado tree
to survive Los Angeles’ great freeze of 1913. The Fuerte avocado became
an early mainstay of California’s avocado industry.
Formed
in 1924, the California Avocado Grower’s Exchange proved instrumental in
creating distribution channels and quality standards for this odd-looking fruit.[9]
Hass Avocados Then
Take Over
About
90% of the nation’s avocado crop currently comes from California, with about
half of this being grown in San Diego County.[10] Hass
avocados account for about 95% of all avocado production in California.[11]
What accounts for this Hass avocado hegemony?
It
all started out as a mistake. Rudolph Hass, a postman and hobby farmer,
purchased avocado seedlings in the 1920s in order to grow two acres of Lyon
variety avocado trees. The Lyon variety itself originated in Hollywood,
California, from a seed planted in 1908.[12]
Hass
planted what would become the mother of all such avocado trees in the spring of
1926 in a grove in La Habra Heights.
Hass wanted to use the seedling as a
rootstock on which to graft other avocado tree buds. But the grafts
wouldn’t take. Hass then planned to cut down the tree, but his children
convinced him to keep it, as they preferred the taste of its avocados to other
more popular varieties.[13]
The Hass avocado emerged from this lucky chance seedling.
The ’139 patent—it expired in 1952—describes the Hass
plant patent claim as follows:
The
variety of avocado tree herein described characterized by its summer ripening,
medium-sized fruits, of purple color having a leathery skin which is thin for a
Guatemalian, and borne on long stemps [sic stems],
with a small tight seed and with creamy flesh of excellent color and nutty
flavor, smooth with no fibre and butter-like consistency.
Hass
entered into an agreement with H.H. Brokaw of Whittier, California, to grow and
propagate his avocado trees, splitting the tree sale income between them (Hass
25%/Brokaw 75%). Despite significantly higher prices per tree than the
more common Fuerte variety, the demand for Hass avocado trees would lead to
near yearly sellouts of Brokaw’s nursery stocks.[14]
After
76 years, the Hass mother avocado tree succumbed to root rot in 2002.[15]
The ’139 patent states that the “original tree is a Guatamalian seedling of
unknown parentage.” To this day, no one really knows what variety of
seedling produced the Hass avocado.
Recent Avocado
Patenting Developments
Innovative
research in avocado groves continues, much of it funded through University of
California research institutions.
Two
recent plant patents issued in March 2014 are illustrative of a basic avocado
production issue—root rot. Both patents claim new avocado cultivars that
are more resistant to root rot caused by the fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi, which attacks and kills the
feeder roots of avocado trees. See U.S. Plant Patent Nos. 24278 (entitled
“Avocado Variety Named ‘Uzi’”) and 24279 (“Avocado
Rootstock Named ‘Steddom’”).
Avocados
also spawn a market for kitchen gadgets. A recent example is U.S. Patent No. 8,726,799,
entitled an “avocado pitting device.” It issued on May 20, 2014. A
patent drawing shows the following:
This gadget appears to be marketed as the
OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Avocado Slicer.
Consumer
reviews are mixed for this device. Its knife and pit-capturing portions
appear to work well, but the slicing apparatus can be a hit or miss operation.[17]
The
“World’s Healthiest Foods” website notes that greatest phytonutrient
concentrations in avocados occur next to the skin.[18]
To make sure you don’t lose this portion of the avocado when you slice it, a
“nick and peel” technique is recommended:
[T]he
best method is what the California Avocado Commission has called the “nick and
peel” method. In this method, you actually end up peeling the avocado
with your hands in the same way that you would peel a banana. The first
step in the nick-and-peel method is to cut into the avocado lengthwise,
producing two long avocado halves that are still connected in the middle by the
seed. Next you take hold of both halves and twist them in opposite
directions until they naturally separate.
At this point, remove the seed
and cut each of the halves lengthwise to produce long quartered sections of the
avocado. You can use your thumb and index finger to grip the edge of the
skin on each quarter and peel it off, just as you would do with a banana skin.
The final result is a peeled avocado that contains most of that dark
green outermost flesh, which provides you with the best possible phytonutrient
richness from the pulp portion of the avocado.[19]
Avocado San Andreas
In
her West Coast Cook Book (1952), Helen Evan Brown observes that
avocados “are a favored first course on the West Coast.” “But as for
cooking the fruit, all experts agree that it is ruinous. Not only does
the magnificent flavor of the avocado disappear entirely, a distasteful one
takes its place.” Adding avocados to cooked dishes just before serving
them, however, is okay. Warming does them no harm.[20]
If
you really want to liven up your next dinner party, consider preparing Helen
Brown’s classic recipe for “Avocado San Andreas.” Serve ripe avocados on
the half shell and accompany each with a whole lime, cut in half for easy
squeezing. Pass around a decanter of light rum and let each guest squeeze
the lime and pour the rum over the avocado in an amount he or she thinks is
“most judicious.”[21]
Your party will be off to a quick splash in no time! Bon Appetit!
__________________________________
[2] Helen Evans Brown, West Coast Cook Book (1952),
p. 190. This cookbook is a mid-20th century gem, and led to a close
friendship between Helen and James Beard—the reigning king of American
gastronomy—that lasted until Helen’s passing in 1964. James Beard’s
culinary correspondence with Helen Brown is the subject of Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles: Letters to Helen Evans
Brown (1995).
[4] H. Chen, et al., “Tracing the Geographic Origins of Major
Avocado Cultivars,” Journal of Heredity100(1): 56-65 (September 8, 2008).
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