What Haas God wrought? (a rant)

[Jenise]

No, that's not a misspelling, I want to complain about avocados.

They're almost black. They're bumpy and thick skinned. The sign in the grocery store says "small Haas avocados, $1 each". I buy ten. Finally, today, they're ripe enough to use. Oh boy, avocado toast for breakfast!

Then I cut one open. Pale, green-white flesh. This is all wrong. Now granted, most grocery store avocados aren't the deep banana-skin yellow of a true, neighbor's yard, Southern California Haas avocado. But this one is unusually pale. And there are curious brown veins at the stem end. Hmmm.

I cut open another. It will take two to make enough mash for two servings of avocado toast. It's just like the first one. So I cut open another even though I don't need it, but just to make the results conclusive. It, too, is the same.

So I grab a spoon and scoop the halves of flesh onto a plate where the coarse mash will take place. I press them with a fork. Watery fluid gushes out. Okay, I exaggerate, it didn't exactly gush, but this is no oily avocado. It's watery, very watery, and the flesh virtually liquifies under the slightest pressure from my fork. This will not be a chunky mash as I like it. It's more like ground except where the brown veins are--those are thick and ropey like string. Not thread, STRING. Ew.

I remove the strings I can find and taste the mash. Just as I feared, it's as dilute as it looks. And it's sweet. Frankly, it's like those horribly winter avocados that come out of Florida, Bacon I believe the variety is called, only these are far worse than any Bacon I ever tasted. The Bacons didn't have brown strings in them.

But oh well, Bob is waiting for his breakfast so I place a paper towel on the mash to wick up excess moisture and stir in some salt. I normally only top the mash, once installed on it's bread partner (in this case, unbuttered but toasted whole wheatberry English muffins), with a finishing salt and pepper, but this stuff was so tasteless, so devoid of a Haas's natural buttery, nutty goodness, that I had no choice but to season the mash itself so it tasted of...well, something.

So I served them. Bob bit in and immediately hit a string I'd missed. s. He starts to pull it out of his mouth thinking it's just a short speck but this one was longer than any of the others I'd pulled out and it kept on coming. I thought maybe there'd be a bucket on the other end once he got it up. His eyes got huge and he looked like he was going to gag. Finally it's out and removed from sight by his napkin.

"WHAT," he demands to know, "was THAT?"

"These avocados are a bit stringy," I said apologetically.

"How many more like this do we have?"

"Seven."

"Dump 'em."

So that's how bad they were. Truly, the worst avocados ever and to someone who grew up in AvocadoLand, a true abomination. One visited on us, I presume, by some despotic agribusiness trying to make a buck over the winter by growing avocados where avocados shouldn't grow.

It was a long, long time ago that I had my first Haas avocado, and this morning's breakfast makes it seem even further away than mere time or miles. Back then, Fuertes were the reigning 'cado, and my grandmother had a sensational tree in her yard that grew the largest Fuertes I've ever seen. But while playing with a friend on a rural hillside hear her home, I discovered a grove of trees that look like grammy's, but which dispensed these very fat black bumpy fruit. Inside was the richest yellow flesh, and the flavor was incredible. Today's Haas are neither as fat, yellow nor as rich as those were, though I've occasionally had some from Farmers Markets that were, and which reassured me that my memory hadn't overglamourized the fruit. They really HAD been that good.

And is this a foodie thing or what, though I was no more than eight (I can be sure, because this was a first-third grade friend I visited), I stopped taking the shortcut over the two hills between our houses and drug my wagon the long way 'round, about a mile, so I could bring lots and lots of this wonderful food home to my family.

Haas began showing up in stores within the next decade, and regretfully quality has declined to where what is now called is merely Haas in outward appearance, and only rarely in flavor. I accept that. After all, most of these aren't grown in Los Angeles but in Mexico, or even further south than that. But these avocados we had this morning? A travesty.

Worse than I ever thought things could get.

Your avocados are a victim of two things--picked under-ripe and then long cold storage, which encourages the seed to sprout root-fibers that invade the fleshy parts of the avocado. Maybe they think they can get away with it since you're so far from avocado growing areas. We still get good avocadoes here in So. Cal, even cute little Haas avocados that are cheap this time of year. But the best ones are still home-grown. We have a Fuerte tree that is producing well this year and the flesh is as buttery, yellow and delicious as those of your past. There's no doubt about it, grocery store produce is getting worse all the time.
Ines

Jenise, don't stand for it. Take them back, tell the produce manager and get your money back. I do it all the time. My produce guy has gotten to know me now and if he sees me pick up something, he comes over and tells me, "you won't like that!" I remind him to let the growers know the produce they are sending is not acceptable. We are becoming a generation of "acceptance" of the inferior. Don't get sucked in, especially with our food.

Jenise, I had nearly this exact experience a couple of weeks ago. I was so disappointed. I haven't bought an avocado since and I usually purchase them every time I am at the store.

Avocados grow like weeds. Why are they so expensive?

My Mom was visiting a friend in Panama some years back and she said that the avocados just fall off the trees and rot because they have so many of them. What gives?

rwj

Jenise, what you describe is a the classic complaint about the Chilean avocado. I'm guessing your avocados hail from there.

They said they could grow Hass avocados in Chile. They seem to have gotten the outside down pat. They look like Hass.
The inside, as you found out, is still a work in progress.

They're cheap, but they're really not very good.

Blame the grower and/or shipper and/or produce buyer, but not the avocado type. We get good Haas (and Fuerte and others) here in Berkeley all the time.

[Jenise]

Jenise, what you describe is a the classic complaint about the Chilean avocado. I'm guessing your avocados hail from there.

They said they could grow Hass avocados in Chile. They seem to have gotten the outside down pat. They look like Hass.
The inside, as you found out, is still a work in progress.

They're cheap, but they're really not very good.

John, I've often found the Chileans to have a woody flavor and generally less flavor than most so I usually avoid them, but stringy/watery has never been an issue before. Troubling, isn't it? Most fruit allow you to guestimate the quality by some outward appearance or aroma, but not avocados. The lousy and the perfectly delicious are visually identical and you don't know what you have until you get them home.

Karen, you're right. These go back.

Jenise, Barbara Boxer has introduced legislation to hopefully tighten up the quality standards for avocados. I'm not sure how much this is protection for the California growers or protection for consumers, but avocados are extremely variable in quality and as you rightfully point out there is no way for a consumer to check quality beforehand.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1229

Regards, Bob

Most fruit allow you to guesstimate the quality by some outward appearance or aroma, but not avocados. The lousy and the perfectly delicious are visually identical and you don't know what you have until you get them home.

I have the same problem with mangoes. Any tips?

Jenise, how distressing.

Shows how companies can focus so much on bottom line that they inevitably short the customers they most depend upon.

I find this info on avocados particularly interesting because I just recently did a Slow Foods Dinner in Florida celebrating the Wilson Popenoe avocado, wherein each course featured avocado as an ingredient (including dessert!). They also had a spokesperson there from FSU, as well as a book written about Popenoe.

I had no idea, frankly, who the man was, and discovered he was quite reknowned in botanical circles. He was quite the globetrotting botanist, working for the megalithic United Fruit Company in the early 1900s, travelling to strange and exotic locations all over the world searching for fruits and vegetables UFC could exploit, then working on developing strains of those fruits and veggies so they would be more suitable for shipping or transplanting. There were some fascinating pictures of his exploits, especially in Central and South America. As I recall, the artichoke he's most well known for originated in Central American jungles, and before it became popular he had to work to reduce it from its gigantic size and make the flavor more intense and the texture more buttery.

Until then I lived in blissful ignorance of the diversity of the basic avocado.

[Jenise]

Avocados grow like weeds. Why are they so expensive? rwj

In general, it's their short shelf-life. When avocados are ripe, they twist right off their branch but they're still hard, and they'll soften once picked which you want to do because if you leave them on the tree, the birds get them, and they'll bruise very easily. As a grower, you have a limited amount of time to get them picked, into storage and shipped. As a grocer, a substantial number of the fruit you have to sell will over-ripen before they sell. That all contributes to cost. Then last winter, a substantial portion of Southern California's avocado farms were damaged in the long, rare freeze that occurred in places that never freeze--they didn't just lose the fruit, but most juvenile and many mature orchards were wiped out too. All things considered, that you can now buy avocados year 'round almost anywhere in this country is fairly impressive. But no doubt, the quality varies: buy California when you can, Mexican when you can't, and avoid Chile.

Jenise, what you describe is a the classic complaint about the Chilean avocado. I'm guessing your avocados hail from there.

They said they could grow Hass avocados in Chile. They seem to have gotten the outside down pat. They look like Hass.
The inside, as you found out, is still a work in progress.

They're cheap, but they're really not very good.

I think John summed it up (and also spells it correctly- I too thought for years it was Haas).

Betsy hates it when I bring in Fuerte, but I would prefer Mexican or Florida Fuerte to Chilean Hass (though CA Hass is my fave)

[Jenise]

Your avocados are a victim of two things--picked under-ripe and then long cold storage, which encourages the seed to sprout root-fibers that invade the fleshy parts of the avocado.

I'm sure you're right about the the first two, but the fibers in this case didn't come from the seed (I'm familiar with those). They were truly coming from and attached to the stem base, and were huge and sturdy like varicose veins.

Thanks, Jenise. That clears up a lot. Some of which was painfully obvious had I stopped to think for a moment.

rwj

The story of Rudolph Hass and the Hass avocado is interesting; Hass was a letter carrier who bought the seedling, couldn't graft it, wanted to cut it down but his kids convinced him to let it grow because they liked the taste.

Hass made a 25/75% deal with another avocado grower, got a patent in 1935, and died the year the patent expired. A copy of the patent makes interesting reading here.

PS: I'm sorry about your avocados, Jenise, but grateful for the post; I've always spelled it "Haas" before your post. That's how our local grocery spells it too.

[Jenise]

PS: I'm sorry about your avocados, Jenise, but grateful for the post; I've always spelled it "Haas" before your post. That's how our local grocery spells it too.

Bob, gentle correction accepted, but I've seen it both ways and never knew which was right until now.

No correction meant, Jenise. I really had "Haas" in my head, and hadn't noticed any other spelling. In any event, thanks again. It was fun looking into the history of this Avocado variety.

That is ICKY. In your honor, I had avocado toast for breakfast, made with ur homegrown avocados. Yummy!
Ines

[Jenise]

Just watching the news down there, Ines. Tough show. I just called Annabelle to ask if she had a bag packed just in case.

This morning there was no sunrise, just a tepid greenish/yellowish haze that fills the sky. It's the smoke from all the fires...
At least the winds have subsided, so the fires will be contained soon, I hope. The whole thing would be very depressing but for the countless demonstrations of courage, hope, kindness and generosity in the face of this disaster.