What’s the deal with avocado? This little Mexican tree fruit (Yes, fruit. Not vegetable) has been soaking up the culinary limelight in recent years, muscling its way into every supermarket and restaurant kitchen from Los Angeles to Louisiana. People are obsessed with its distinct, buttery flavor, and they’re starting to demand it like ketchup wherever they go. So move over mayonnaise – the Avocado Empire has begun.
But why now? It’s not like the avocado was discovered in 2005 or something. In fact, it’s one of the oldest plants consumed by the human species, with cultivation dating back to 10,000 BC in Puebla, Mexico. Its role in American gastronomy was, for many years, limited to the salsa bar in taco shops throughout Southern California. You probably knew what guacamole was before you ever heard of an avocado. Funny how those things work.
Then something interesting happened. Around the turn of the 21st century, the mass media witnessed an explosion in health and diet publications. Food suddenly became nutrition. Eating suddenly became a numbers game. An array of medical studies began to unleash the health benefits of certain foods, and some people began to think seriously about the quantity and quality of what they put in their mouth. One of the most interesting stories of this era is what I like to call the “fat revolution” – the discovery that certain fats are actually good for us, that our bodies might actually need them. We started hearing all sorts of fancy terms for these “healthy” fats, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated and omega-3. We learned that the words “trans” and “saturated” were bad. Everything else was fine.
In the midst of this “fat revolution” emerged the avocado, nature’s testament to the nutritional wealth of unsaturated fats. Cooking and diet magazines wasted no time jumping on the bandwagon, spitting out thousands of recipes that featured this new miracle fruit. Then came the restaurants, the supermarkets, and eventually the fast food chains. The avocado has become one of the best marketing tools in the history of food service – delicious, healthy, and a symbol of gastronomic status (it’s rather expensive for a plant). Meanwhile, we the people have fallen head over heels in love.
People want avocado in everything now. You can’t make a salsa without someone commenting on its absence. So I gave up, and I’m giving the people what they want. Avocado mango salsa. You’re welcome.
Ingredients:
4-5 tomatoes
1 red onion
1 large mango
1 avocado
1 jalapeño
2 limes
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper
Directions: Dice the tomato, onion, mango, avocado, and jalapeño. Place in a large bowl. Add ginger, vinegar, and juice of limes. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
