Avocado Pears, Alligator Pears, Testicle Pears, Butter Pears: all old names for the humble Avocado

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I was rummaging through some old papers of my late Grannie, specifically her old recipe book which I have managed to keep hold of. My mother did have it, but her ability to cook is somewhere around the -100 on a 0-100 scale and no amount of recipes from WWII are going to help her, so when I was asked if I was interested in looking at it, I jumped at the chance. I knew a lot of the stuff would not be useable by myself with me being vegetarian, but a surprising number of dishes are actually vegetarian and even vegan with there being an egg ration for some of the time my Grannie collected her recipes.

So what has this got to do with avocados? Well on a page relating to chickens including a recipe listing a rooster as an ingredient, not a chicken or even a roasting chicken, there was mention of avocado pears. This got me thinking about how people now often confuse avocados as being a vegetable with them not being sweet. If they knew the name avocado pear, they would know it was a fruit, simple really.

So I started to dig to see if I could find out how long ago avocado pears became avocados?

During the course of my digging, I came up with a whole load of other names for the avocado pear tree...

The avocados of the early 20th century were still called “alligator pears” for their bumpy, olive skin. The moniker, suffice it to say, was not appetizing. The association with the swamp-dwelling, man-eating reptile was “ruining the avocado business,” the California Avocado Growers’ Exchange complained at the time. The group began pushing to replace the name with the more-exotic and less-menacing “avocado,” a word that was adapted centuries ago from the Aztec “ahuacacuahatl,” or “testicle tree.” (I suppose “testicle fruit” did not make the short list for the rebranding effort, either.)

(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/the-selling-of-the-avocado/385047/)

I also, obviously came up with a whole load of nutritional data on them, broken down by they main varieties that are sold today (in the major supermarkets) (Hass, Fuerte, Lamb Hass)

So some nutritional data....

Per 100g

• Calories: 160
• Fats: 15g
  • saturated fatty acids: 2.1g
  • polyunsaturated acids: 1.8g
  • monounsaturated fatty acids: 10g
• Cholesterol: 0mg
• Sodium: 7mg
• Potassium: 485mg
• Carbohydrates: 9g
  • dietary fibre: 7g
  • sugar: 0.7g
• Protein: 2g
• Vitamin A: 146IU
• Vitamin B6: 0.3mg
• Vitamin B12: 0 mcg
• Vitamin C: 10mg
• Vitamin D: 0IU
• Calcium: 12mg
• Magnesium: 0.3mg
• Iron: 0.6mg

I was surprised by one statement I saw on a growers website

HASS The Hass variety contains between 18 and 20% of olive oil.

http://lyfruits.com/en/avocado-pears/

I had no idea avocados contained olive oil! Not sure they mean that

 

[Rosyrain]

Well at least you have a keepsake item from your granny even if there are a lot of foods in there you can't eat. My mom has a lot of antique cookbooks and I hope she passes them down to me someday. She has a lot of the 1950s Americana cookbooks that feature ladies of that Era in their perfect dresses and aprons. I have to giggle when I turn the pages of those cookbooks.