Fresh from the Field: Avocados and You, pt. 2
Howdy, fellow Produce-faithful. Phil’s back with the latter half of his avocado treatise. Read on for surprising, delicious insights, to get your pallet ready for some weekend guac. Without ado… –Ed.
Even without knowledge of all their extra benefits, our demand for Avocados has grown in leaps and bounds. It should come as no surprise to learn that avocados were immediately prized by the first Europeans to taste them. Below is the description of avocados by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, historian for the conquistadores traveling with Hernando Cortez in 1519. His account was published in 1526 in the Summario de la Natural Historia de las Indias:
El sumario in question.
They are large trees, with broad leaves similar to those of the laurel, but larger and more green. They bare pears weighing a pound and even more, though some weigh less, and the color and shape is that of true pears, and the rind somewhat thicker, but softer, and in the center of the fruit is a seed like a peeled chestnut…and between this and the rind is the part which is eaten, which is abundant and is a paste similar to butter and of very good eating and of good taste, and such that those who have these fruits guard them and esteem them highly and the trees are wild as are the others which I have mentioned, for the chief gardener is God, and Indians apply no work whatever to them. The pears are excellent when eaten with cheese, and they are gathered before they are ripe and stored, and when treated thus they ripen perfectly for eating but after they have reached this stage they spoil quickly if allowed to stand.
Note that though avocados are prized and guarded, the “Indians” do not appear (at least to a conquistador) to cultivate them in our typical domestic sense, yet they’re very large and tasty. Now we get to the heart of the avocado mystery. What is supposed to eat this thing? Seeds as we understand them are designed to spread genetic material. Some blow with the wind, some catch in animals’ fur, most are eaten and passed. One look at the avocado, however, and it just doesn’t make sense.
The gomphotheres in question.
Avocados are a leftover super-food of gigantic mammals that fell extinct roughly 12,000 years ago. Giant Sloths, Glyptodonts, Toxodons, Mastodons and Gomphotheres probably dug on avocados, and probably ate the whole thing, and giving the seed a hearty bed of fertilizer to sprout in. Toxodons looked like giant horses crossed with giant elephants, Glyptodonts were like huge elephants, and the Glomphothere was an armadillo the size of a truck with a spiked club like a mace at the end of its tail. Although these awesome creatures survived until just-before historic times, we have only a slightly better understanding of the dinosaurs’ fate than their own; it’s called the Quaternary Extinction Event, and no one can pin it down.
Really, it's hard to do them wrong.
For a long time we thought that since their extinction occurred at the same time humans appeared on the Western continents,we must have hunted them into extinction. But there’s no way a relatively small population of primitive hunters armed with spears could hope to wipe out all the saber-toothed cats or all the Short-Faced Bears from one pole to the other in a few thousand years – never mind all other species. Another theory is climate change due to the retreat of the last Ice Age. But then, these species had already survived several such cycles. One more possible explanation is the asteroid impact/climate change theory. There appears to be a layer of geologic evidence to support this, however, knowing what we do about global climate systems it seems odd that the large mammals of North and South America would die out while those in Africa and Asia survived. And to further stir the pot, keep in mind this event occurs at the very beginning of recorded history. Most ancient cultures spoke of a cataclysmic flood that wiped out the previous age.
Luckily, the avocado survived “whatever it was.” And we’re all the beneficiaries of millions of years of evolution. So the next time you’re in Produce,wondering what in the world an avocado is, imagine a 20’ tall, five-ton ground sloth contentedly munching on these remarkable berries in the lush South American forest, 12,000 years before your mom was born. Come by the Co-op tonight, and get your ancient world on.
peace,
Phil