How avocados became a blood-soaked fruit – and cursed a generation
Many years ago, my friend Simon was asked what he wanted for his 16th birthday. He thought for a few moments, then asked his parents for something that was rather exotic. It arrived at school the following day, to be greeted by a crowd of excited teenage boys. Most of us had never seen anything like it before. Younger and more sophisticated readers will struggle to believe this, but that outlandish gift was a simple avocado.
This was, I should mention, Somerset in the 1970s. Back then, in the days of Vesta Chow Mein ready meals and Instant Whip, even lasagne was a rare treat. So we gazed upon that glamorous green interloper in much the same way as the wartime generation must have greeted the banana.
Well, haven’t we come a long way since then? Even in the steadfastly old-fashioned Wiltshire village where I live now, my children have avocado on toast for breakfast. In doing this they are not only bang-on trend, but they’ve been unwittingly thrust into the forefront of the culture wars: not something which usually bothers those of us who prefer Weetabix.
They are nutritious, meat-free, high in unsaturated fat but low calorie, and they look very attractive on Instagram. No wonder they have become synonymous with millennial consumerism. But this week there was a new development in the world of avocado worship.
After news that Mexican drug gangs have been profiting from the business, the London-based El Pastor chain of Mexican restaurants announced that it was offering “cartel-free” avocados, guaranteed to be untainted by crime and mob violence. The El Pastor supply chain is monitored to ensure that no money gets to the drug-runners.
Avocados are referred to as “green gold”, with farmers in Mexico being forced to take up arms to defend themselves against drug cartels. It is fast becoming a “conflict commodity” like blood diamonds from Africa. In fact, so lucrative is the fruit that Mexico – by far the world’s largest producer with control over 30 per cent of global production – is dedicating ever more acreage to avocado plantations. But with greater spoils comes greater threat from organised criminal gangs who extort protection fees from farmers. Illegal deforestation and logging comes naturally in attendance as an increasing amount of land is cleared to meet the breakfast demands of wealthy westerners.
But it’s not the only country mining the wildly profitable avocado seam. Colombia – already engaged in mortal combat with cocaine cartels – has seen its avocado production skyrocket, so much so, that it’s now the world’s second largest producer. Much of south and central America is in on the game – for the UK and much of the EU, the Hass avocados in supermarket aisles most likely hail from Peru – but this devotion to avocado farming does have devastating ramifications.
Aside from violence, racketeering and deforestation, in 2015, New York Magazine reported that so much water is required for Chile’s avocado plantations that the rivers and groundwater stores are being drained faster than they are being replenished. Across the Americas and up to California (the US being the 13th largest producer), the water demands of avocado farming are causing some to call the practice unethical.
But such geopolitical upheaval has done seemingly little to stop the demand. So how did the fruit become such a precious commodity? The cult of avocado toast can arguably be traced back to Gwyneth Paltrow, who featured a piece of toast topped with a vegan mayonnaise spread, crushed avocado and salt in her 2013 cookbook It’s All Good.
She was aided and abetted by Nigella Lawson, who in 2015 revealed her own recipe on her TV series, prompting a 30 per cent spike in UK sales. But there is another claimant. Australian restaurateur Bill Granger claims he smeared avocado on toast as far back as 1993 at his café in Sydney.
Now there is no escape. There is a National Avocado Day, celebrated every year on July 31 (although the real avocado day is Superbowl Sunday, when Americans eat their way through guacamole dip that traditionally accompanies the game). You can even buy coffee served in an avocado husk, as well as dresses and socks with avocado patterns, and even avocado-print pants.
The avocado certainly took its time to reach us. It was known in central America as far back as 10,000BC as the ahuacatl, which became a euphemism for testicles (in much the same way as we say “plums”). The Spanish explorer Martín Fernández de Enciso is credited as the first European to sample the fruit. “That which it contains is like butter,” he wrote, “and is so good and pleasing to the palate that it is a marvellous thing.”
Despite this enthusiasm, the avocado wasn’t exactly an instant hit. “The fruit’s popularity was slow to spread, only being cultivated in the US at the end of the 19th century,” says the Larousse Gastronomique. “It did not reach French recipe books until the 1950s”.
We British had to wait until 1968 before avocados became widely available. It was a time when the country was opening up to new foods, partly under the influence of writer Elizabeth David. Among the imports she championed was the avocado.
They reportedly first went on sale in Marks & Spencer, marketed as avocado pears, but initially got a muted reception. One customer wrote a letter of complaint to the store after serving one with custard.
Nobody has embraced the avocado more than the millennial generation, born between 1981 and 1996. Perhaps they were influenced by the 1982 children’s book Avocado Baby, in which an avocado diet gives the young hero almost Popeye-like strength.
According to the Hass Avocado Board, a US-based marketing group, millennials spend 5 per cent more on avocados than any other group; 80 per cent of millennials bought an avocado at least once in 2018.
And it is here that we must reluctantly enter the divisive and somewhat baffling world of the culture wars. Millennials are renowned for their political activism, but a rigid devotion to social justice and a fancy for avocado on toast (which can set you back around ￡14 at some cafés) is not entirely compatible.
Aside from the farms putting enormous strain on local water resources and being the source of land clearance and cartel violence, there are even more unpleasant aspects involved in the serving up of a simple “avo on toast”. In September last year, Piers Morgan was in typically robust form as he skewered a representative of Animal Rebellion. Billions of bees, he said, are flown into California to help pollinate avocado crops, and many of them die. “Billions of bees get slaughtered so you can have your avocados,” said Morgan, denouncing the “total hypocrisy” of the campaigners.
And let’s not forget that an avocado in the UK must first be transported across the globe. A 2017 study by the Carbon Footprint Ltd consultancy claimed that a pack of two avocados had an emissions footprint of 846g of CO2 – double that of 1kg of bananas.
The fruit has even been thrust into the debate about young people and home ownership. Australian property developer Tim Gurner made headlines in 2017 by suggesting that more youngsters could afford property if they didn’t have such expensive tastes in food.
“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said.
He was echoing remarks by the Australian author and demographer Bernard Salt. “I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.” In response, young hipsters said they were spending money on avocado treats precisely because they would never be able to buy a home.
While we’re on the subject of millennials, reports consistently suggest that they aren’t having as much sex as previous generations. That surely puts to bed, if you’ll excuse the phrase, the idea that the avocado is an aphrodisiac.
If you ask me, that mistaken belief arose when an excitable researcher got the wrong end of the stick after listening to the Ballad of Barry And Freda, by Victoria Wood. You might remember that this involves leaning backwards over a hostess trolley, being beaten on the bottom by a copy of Woman’s Weekly, and the following plea from Freda: “Let’s do it, let’s do it, I feel I absolutely must / I won’t exempt you, I want to tempt you, want to drive you mad with lust / No cautions, just contortions, smear an avocado on my lower portions.”
Please do not try this at home. Unless, of course, Gwyneth and Nigella have given the go-ahead.