Why Are Avocados So Fickle?
Reading Time: 5 minutesWant a ‘Perfect’ Avocado? There’s a Secret., These fruits have a unique ripening process. Here’s how to select the perfect one., How to select a perfectly ripe avocado.
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There’s a specific flavor of agony that comes from buying an avocado you thought was perfect only to bring it home, open it up, and find you were wrong: It’s too mushy or too dark in color; it’s hard as a rock, stringier than corn, or almost watery. So it ends up in the trash, or at least masked in some sauce from the back of your fridge.
It’s probably not you—it’s the avocado. It turns out that these dramatics are inherent to the fruit itself, or at least that’s what the avocado experts say. But there are a few things you can do to improve the quality of your avocado experience. It’s not just about getting the timing of your avocado consumption right—it’s unlearning a thing or two about this idiosyncratic fruit.
Think Beyond the Hass
The Hass avocado is the fruit that likely comes to mind when you’re picturing the ‘perfect’ Instagrammable avocado: dark and lightly textured skin, an almost ombre green interior with a precise ‘give’-to-firmness ratio, and a relatively small, dark pit. It’s ‘meal-size,’ which, entranced by convenience and plagued by mushy brown avocados, we love. As demand for avocados in the United States has nearly tripled since the turn of the century, Hass has led the charge, Mary Lu Arpaia, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, told me. Our fixation on Hass avocados over other varieties is unsustainable, said Robert Henry, a researcher at the University of Queensland who worked on the first successful sequencing of the Hass avocado’s genome. In a constantly changing climate, a reliance on a singular breed of avocado that produces crops biannually means we could be in trouble if it’s threatened by pests or diseases.
But if you’re looking for an ‘avacodo-y’ avocado, a Hass is what you would generally go for at the store. The experts I talked to challenged consumers to expand their palates: Perhaps they love the nuttiness of a Hass on toast, but would want something sweeter in a salad; try an avocado from the Dominican Republic. In the next few years, you may even see Arpaia and UCR botanist Eric Focht’s newly released Luna UCR avocado breed on the shelves; it boasts a ‘sweet, sort of floral characteristic.’ Imagine that with some vegetarian tacos.
Arpaia and Focht want to see a future of avocados that offers a glorious array of varieties in your average grocery store, sourced seasonally and labeled boldly, á la apples. Maybe you love a Gem avocado; maybe you’re nostalgic for the comfort of a Hass. Maybe you’ll be a Luna UCR loyalist.
Diversifying our palates, and ditching the idea that an avocado is just Hass and has to look a certain way, will open both culinary and sustainability doors for consumers and producers alike. Aside from the risks that pests and disease pose to a Hass monocrop, better fruit production comes from a field with both type A and B flowering types. So, you can think about it like this: For Hass—which is type A—to grow with wonder and abundance, it relies on the pollination of a B-flower type crop. Why not show those B-flower types some love?
An Avocado for Every Season
From there, Arpaia told me that the best avocado is the one that is in season. While it may seem rather obvious, the place an avocado is grown, its breed, and the time of year significantly influence its peak ripeness, and our peak enjoyment. When the avocados we buy are out of season (i.e., buying the Hass because it is a Hass despite it being from California in November), they are stringy, firm, and pale—even when they are ripe.
In the U.S., more than 95 percent of avocados come from five places: Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and California. The differing climate and proximity to the equator of each place determine its avocados’ seasonality, and thus quality. So check the sticker on your avocado and look at the sign above it to see where it’s from. The best fruits come from the middle of their harvest window. For Peruvian avocados, fruits are best from late April to early September, and California fruits are best in May, June, and July. For a Chilean avocado, January is prime time.
Narrowing In on the Right Window
Even if you get the perfect avocado at the perfect time of year, the exact window in which it’s soft but not mushy is still elusive. Avocado ‘perfection’ is subjective and a fallacy, Focht and Arpaia stressed to me, but choosing good ones is a skill that can be honed. (Since I started following these tips, everyone is complimenting my avocado selection skills.)
Avocados have a unique ripening process, initiated essentially by what Henry described as the ‘injury of harvest.’ Once an avocado is picked from the tree, it begins the production of ‘cellulases that degrade the cellulose of the cell wall that softens the fruit’; this process is different from most fruits, which ripen because of their rapid ethylene production post-harvest, which accelerates maturation. The avocado process means that growers and importers are able to harvest fruits at the exact right time for their slower ripening to occur along their journey to grocery stores (though they obviously are often a little underripe once they get there). Because of this, ‘there’s nothing wrong with buying fruit that has been on a boat for a long time,’ Arpaia told me. Seasonality, rather than distance traveled, is your best indicator of richness, quality, and flavor.
Experts I spoke to recommended looking for a darker, firmer fruit and ripening it at home on the counter for a few days. (Ideal ripening temperature is 68 degrees!) To slow down the ripening process at home, you can just toss it in the fridge, delaying its production of cellulase. Robi Kellerman and Pamela Fink, authors of the cookbook Avocado Highway, shared the tip that ‘if you are in a situation where your avocados are not so ripe and you need them tomorrow, put an apple in with the avocado in a paper bag and leave it overnight.’
Henry, who spoke to me from Australia, exposed the inadequacy of American supermarkets’ avocado organization system. He told me that in nearly all run-of-the-mill grocery stores there, the produce department has begun labeling and sorting avocados by their readiness to eat; when he goes to the store, he is able to pick from the ‘eat now’ section, the ‘ready in 1–2 days’ section, or the section for the uberprepared 5-days-early shopper. Think about all of the thrown-away avocados that are victims of a poorly timed purchase that could be salvaged! Revolutionary.
Next time you’re in the store looking for the perfect avocado, check your calendar and where your avocado is grown, and avoid injuring all the avocados in the pile by squeezing them (that is one of the reasons so many avocados are ‘too mushy’). ‘Go deeper in the pile!’ Kellerman said.
Hopefully, the future of avocado consumption looks beyond just the Hass, finds its strength in diversity, looks to seasonality and resource-informed production, and has wonderfully labeled fruits in stores of all price ranges. For now, check where your fruit is from on that tiny little sticker, experiment with new varieties, and stay attuned to the latest avocado news. There may be a new breed just for you.
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Reference: https://slate.com/technology/2023/08/avocado-fickle-mushy-perfect-hass.html
Ref: slate
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