The avocado is indigenous to Mexico; while there are much larger varieties of avocado, the Haas has the creamiest, most delicious flesh. As a result, 98% of the avocados grown in Mexico are Hass.
Mesoamericans “discovered” the avocado, which had grown there for perhaps 50 million years, and called it ahuacatl. Archaeologists have found evidence of avocado consumption that dates back
almost 10,000. Initially, people simply
gathered wild avocados. It is estimated that Mesoamerican tribes
such as the Olmec and the Maya began to cultivate avocado tree about 5,000 years ago.
By the
time of the Spanish Conquest, avocados had spread from what is now Mexico, through
Central America into parts of South America. The Incas cultivated them.
Martín Fernández de Enciso (ca. 1470-1528) was the first European to
describe avocados, in a book he wrote in 1519.
The Spanish called the fruit aguacate, a corruption of ahuacatl (which is pronounced ah-hwa-cah-tay). The word itself means testicle: Aztecs saw the hanging fruits as resembling testicles and ate them as a sexual stimulant.
When the Spanish conquistadors who arrived in 1519with Hernán Cortés The Spanish eventually
brought avocados to Europe and sold them to other countries including
England.
In 1653, a Spanish padre, Bernabe Cobo, was the first European to
describe the three principal avocado varieties: Guatemalan, Mexican and West
Indian (source).
Different people, including George Washington, described finding
and eating avocados in the West Indies. Washington visited Barbados
in 1751 and later wrote that the “agovago pears” were a popular food.
Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish naturalist, is believed to have coined the
word “avocado” in 1696, when he mentioned the plant in a catalogue of
Jamaican plants. He also called it the “alligator pear-tree.”
According to Linda Stradley on the website WhatsCookingAmerica.com, for centuries after Europeans came into contact with the avocado, it carried its reputation for inducing sexual prowess. As a result, it wasn’t purchased or consumed by anyone concerned with his or her reputation.
Growers had to sponsor a public relations campaign to dispel the myth before avocados could become popular. After avocados became popular, their dark green, pebbly flesh also earned them the name, “alligator pear.”
Avocados on the tree (photo courtesy Cline Avocados).
Henry Perrine, a horticulturist, first planted avocados in Florida in
1833. They didn’t become a commercial crop until the early 20th
century, though. While they were fairly popular in California, Florida
and Hawaii where they were grown, people in other states avoided
avocados. They didn’t start gaining widespread popularity until the
1950s, when people started putting them in salads.
The name guacamole comes from Mexican Spanish via the indigenous language assumed by the conquering Aztecs, Nahuatl. AhuacamOlli is a compound noun from Ahuacatl [=avocado] + mOlli [=sauce]. The chocolate-based mole sauce comes from that same word (mOlli), which simply means “sauce.”
Types Of Avocado
There are hundreds of avocado cultivars, although today, the vast majority are grown as garden trees, not as commercial crops. The Hass is one of the smaller varieties of avocado: Rich, buttery and flavorful, the flesh is said to have the subtle taste of toasted almonds. The large, smooth- and thin-skinned avocados in the market that hail from the Caribbean have a more bland flavor and are much less oily than the Hass. This makes them less good for guacamole: They don’t mash as well, even though the size might promise an excellent guacamole yield, the quality isn’t there. They are still excellent for salads and other culinary purposes.
The Hass avocado is named after Rudolph Hass, a California postman who planted a seedling in his front yard in the 1920s and patented the cultivar in 1935. When he died in 1952 (the year his patent expired as well), he had no idea that the black-green avocado with the pebbled flesh would become comprise 95% of the avocados grown in California and 80% of the avocados eaten worldwide. (The tree itself succumbed in 2002 at the “ripe” old age of 76 to root fungus.) More than $1 billion of Hass avocados are sold in the U.S., according to the California Avocado Commission.
According to Linda Stradley on the website WhatsCookingAmerica.com, for centuries after Europeans came into contact with the avocado, it carried its reputation for inducing sexual prowess. As a result, it wasn’t purchased or consumed by anyone concerned with his or her reputation.
Growers had to sponsor a public relations campaign to dispel the myth before avocados could become popular. After avocados became popular, their dark green, pebbly flesh also earned them the name, “alligator pear.”
The standard of creaminess and flavor today Hass avocado, developed by a Southern California mail carrier and and amateur horticulturist, Rudolph Hass.
A Hass avocados tree, the modern standard of creamy excellence.
The funny thing is, Hass almost cut down his original tree. He had purchased the seedling in the late 1920s from A.R. Rideout of Whittier, California, a pioneer avocado grower who was always searching for new varieties. Hass had planned to graft another variety onto it, but when grafts didn’t take he decided to cut the tree down. His children talked him out of it, since they preferred the taste of the tree’s fruit to the Fuerte avocado, the industry standard of the day.
Since the quality was high and the tree gave a good yield, Hass took out a patent in 1935, naming the variety after himself. That same year, he signed an agreement with Harold Brokaw, a Whittier nurseryman, to grow and promote the Hass Avocados.
Brokaw began to propagate the Hass exclusively and promoted it in favor of the standard Fuerte variety. The Hass was a far better bearer and matured in the fall, providing a seasonal advantage. The Hass was an immediate sellout success, and the course of avocado history was changed.
