Ripe for Global Domination: The Story of the Avocado

lunch. I think in the same thing and I have a really lovely ripe avocado here on

“the counter. I do too! I do too! You might even think we planned this!”

Oh come on don't tell me you were out of bread. That would be really nice. There's no avocado here we go. That's the toast. Come on. I got bread. Okay, I'm just cutting it into thin slices. The bread is ready. I'm just kind of laying out the thin slices of avocado on the toast. Okay, little mashing on the bread here. Yeah, so I am so freaking bougie that I am going to put a few little pink slifers of pickled

radishes. You have pink pickled radish ready for yours? Cynthia, I'm living that out the Southern California lifestyle. Okay, I'm sprinkling some beautiful salt on top. Oh my god, this is so pretty. The pink on the green. I feel like I could literally invite Gwyneth Paltrow around lunch. Hi, Gwyneth. Are your ears burning? We're talking about you.

“Don't worry, we are not going to spend this episode talking about Gwyneth Paltrow.”

We are, though, going to be talking about an incredibly delicious fruit. Yes, avocado is a fruit. And how it became the symbol of an aspirational lifestyle. We are gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science in history. I'm Nicola Twilly. And I'm Cynthia Graber. So, this avocado toast thing. How would the world did it become a thing? More importantly, how did a fruit that's named after male genitalia become the poster child of the North American

free trade agreement? And the next big thing in China. We hope you enjoy this encore episode. It's supported in part by the Alfred Peace Loan Foundation for the public understanding of science technology and economics. Guestropod is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eater. It's a new world fruit. It's native to Mexico and Central America. That's Maryly R. Pash. She's head of the avocado breeding program at UC Riverside, near me in sunny southern California.

Nobody is sure exactly where the avocado first came from. But the oldest evidence we have

that people were eating avocados comes from settlements from 10,000 years ago in Pueblo and Central Mexico. And again, no one is exactly sure where and when the avocado was domesticated. It might have happened more than once. But it was probably at least 7,000 years ago. The oldest known culture in the Americas, the Carl civilisation of Peru, archaeologists have found evidence that they likely ate domesticated avocados more than 3,000 years ago. The Carl don't seem to have

been eating corn or other grains. And the same is true for another early culture called the Mocaia

“in what's now Mexico and Guatemala. And so avocado may have played a really important role in”

their diets as a major staple. And we know the Maya-Value de Avocados, the symbol they used for the 14th month of the year in their calendar was, and avocado. When the Spanish conquistadors

came to Latin America back in the 16th century, they encountered this fruit that they'd never seen

before that had this Aztec nameahuacata, which means "testacle" actually in the old ancient Norwattel language. Brooklarmer is the on-money columnist for the New York Times magazine and wrote a recent story on avocados. The Aztecs called the "Strange bumpy fruits" testicles because they hung low, often in groups of two. And they look kind of "testically in shape". I mean, I can see testicles in anything, but still. But the Spanish kind of kisitoro is took that name and made it

into avocate from which our avocado has now derived in English. The conquistadors were big avocado fans right away. The first written description of the avocado comes in 1519 from a Spanish guy called Martín Fernandez de Inceso. He described it as "an orange" and when it is ready for eating it turns yellowish, that which it contains is like butter and is of marvelous flavor. So good and pleasing to the palate that it is a marvelous thing. Other conquistadors saying the praise of

avocados as well. They likened them to figs. They said that avocados are healthy fruit for sick people, and when eaten with sugar is like a preserve. They also said that avocados are like pairs but better. From the Spanish records we can get an idea of how indigenous Mesoamericans were using the avocado. They documented instances where it was used to pay nobility as a tribute, but they also wrote that it was for sale in the open air markets of Tenoctitlan. And apparently

pigs used to gorge on the right fruit when it fell from the trees. Their meat was said to have up a particularly excellent flavor. So it's no surprise that the Spanish quickly adopted the avocado as a favorite fruit and eventually distributed it to other Spanish colonies all around the world where they started to grow it too. But the avocado didn't become a major commercial crop until recently. Even though it was grown as a door yard crop tree throughout Central America

actually until the industry in California and to some extent in an industry in Florida started

just about a hundred years ago. What this means is folks like Mary Lou, they've still got a lot to learn about the avocados evolution and its different varieties and its botany in general compared to more established crops like wheat. What we do know is that the avocado is really old in flowering plant terms. The number of the laurel family, this is a very, very ancient part of the angel's

“arms. So ancient, in fact, that you have to imagine back millions of years ago to a time when”

huge ground slots, the size of giraffes and mammoths stomped around avocado trees. These are the types of animals that could swallow a pit that big and then poop it out. These mega sized animals went extinct about 13,000 years ago but rodents picked up the avocado reproduction baton. They not on avocado flesh and leave the seed to grow. Not the avocados target audience, but hey, it works. So for thousands of years, these ancient backyard angiosperms, they came and all

sorts of varieties and sizes. But not hearing California. Over time, we've gone to the point where now here in California, we're 95% has. Has is the name of an avocado variety. Really, the avocado variety that you see in storage today. Has was a chance seedling that was actually found in La Habra Heights. La Habra Heights is the neighborhood in Southeast LA just a few miles

“down the road for me. And guess who's behind this chance seedling? Oh my god, it is none other than our”

old friend, the globe-trudging food explorer, David Fairchild. Fairchild picks up what he sees as the greatest avocado in Chile. We told Fairchild story in an episode I loved. It was about Dan Stone's book called The Food Explorer. And this is Dan describing another one of Fairchild's adventures. He's visiting Chile in 1897. And he explores and he finds this great variety. It's got a thick skin. It's got creamy flesh. It's not stringy at all. And he collects 1,000 seeds and sends them back

to Washington. In hopes that at least a few will survive. A few do. And they are received in Washington. They are propagated. They are sent out to research stations in Southern California toward the coast around Fallbrook area and greater Los Angeles. There were already some avocados in California. They were brought here in the 1850s by settlers from Nicaragua. But Fairchild's shipment

“of a whole bunch of new varieties got people excited about avocados again. And people start experimenting”

with avocados. Farmers start growing them and scientists start breeding their seeds and seeing how they could improve them. Amateurs get into it too. In fact, one of them is a postal worker, a letter carrier. And in his spare time, he just grows avocados in his backyard. And one day, one sprouts even better. There was a seed that was planted in the mid-1920s. And the grower who actually was a postal worker kept trying to top work the tree to the variety that was

a dominant variety of the day. The graph kept failing. They finally gave up for different reasons.

And then all of a sudden, he realized he actually had something in the value. It's straighter, it's fruit comes faster. It's skin is even thicker. It's flesh is even creamier and greener. And so he decides to patent it. And his name was Rudolf Hoss. The mother has tree. It was actually still alive and growing in labyrinth. Apparently it got to an astonishing 65 feet tall. When I read this, I was so excited. I was about to jump in the car and visit it. And then I read some more and it died

in 2002 from the dreaded root rot. There's a plaque there now instead. And the mother tree would is still preserved at a nursery in Ventura. But even though the mother has trees become so venerated that there's a plaque for it, back when Hoss Avocado's were new, the variety wasn't an immediate hit. And if you read some of the older literature though, the thing that it had going against it was the fact that it turned black. There was a very nice article written on the

mid-1940s where they're complaining about, well, you know, the Hasses is great tree. It's a great fruit, but my God is black, not green, because the dominant variety in the 40s up through the 70s was to Forte, which was a green variety. So it just shows how things have changed. So the black color freaked out consumers. But even though it took a few decades, both growers and eaters did eventually get used to it because this brand new Hasse Avocado had a lot going for it.

Well, I can go, I can wax on forever on that one. Let's wax. First of all, in California,

the Hasse Avocado ripens at a very convenient time. Farmers can harvest the house in March through June after the Forte's harvest is over. But it's not just an addition to the Forte. The other thing is, is that the fruit hung on the tree better. Mary Lou is not yet done, listing the Hasse's virtues. The fruit is very easy to handle. It hides a lot of blemishes when

and Peru are allowed to ship to the U.S., which makes it a pretty popular choice there, too,

“because I have insect pests in their countries and research that was done in Mexico indicated that”

the Hasse actually is a very poor host to fruit flies. There are all sorts of varieties growing in Mexico, but the Hasse is the only one they can export. So this explains why small, black, nubby, Hasse Avocados have come to dominate the supermarket shelves today. But why Avocados themselves become so super popular? Well, they weren't, at least not during the great Hasse Forte bottles of the 30s through the 70s. They weren't big in the U.S. or much of the

rest of the world. In Central America and the northern part of South America, though, the Avocados

always being a hit. Here in Mexico in a commercial way Avocados was grown in small orchards.

Main type of avocado fruit was as much fruit and thin skin with large seed and scarce pulp or meat. Love commercial value, but good flavor. Luis Mario Tapio Vargas studies water and soil management at the National Research Institute for Forests and Agriculture. He's based in Michoacán,

“even with the introduction of the Hasse, which had more flesh than seed and the sturdier skin.”

Even then, the rest of the world took some convincing. Part of the problem with the Avocados was its name. In the early 20th century in the United States, it was marketed as the alligator pair, which might explain why I never caught on because it's not a great name. Not a great name at all. The California Avocados growers exchange complained in the 1920s that associating the delicious fruit

with an alligator was, quote, ruining the Avocado business. Eventually, the growers got their way,

and we now call alligator pairs by a bastardized version of the Spanish, bastardized version of the Nahuatl word, which means testicle fruit. It's testicle fruit was also clearly not going to be a winner. Testicles and alligators aside, the Avocado had bigger problems than just its name. In the rest of the world, the places where the Avocado wasn't from, people had no idea how to eat it. It was a fruit, but it wasn't sweet. It was sort of slippery.

“It didn't really cook well. I think when people first encountered the Avocado,”

they're getting them out of off the truck and they're just not edible. They're hard. They don't really know what to do with them. So on top of all the Avocados challenges, consumers are buying them unripe. It is not looking good for the Avocado. How did we get to today? Lauren Oiler wrote an article about the rise of Avocado toast. Yes, we'll get to that. And she looked back at how a few bold eaters in the U.S. were at least trying Avocados in the

early 1900s. She found a New Yorker article from 1937 called Avocado, comma, or the future of eating, by one S.J. Paralman. And he goes to a restaurant in Los Angeles and has an Avocado sandwich on whole wheat and a lime rickie at a pharmacy called best drug stores. And so at that point, you can see at least that there's the concept of Avocado on bread is emerging in our culinary consciousness in America. And then I also found it in 1962 New York Times article

that says you could put Avocado in a toasted sandwich and that would be it and usual way to serve it. Lauren's point is that most people were not eating Avocados. There weren't as many Mexicans in the U.S. back then and most non-Mexican Americans at the time were in eating as many tacos or chips and guacamole as they are today. Most Americans at the time would not necessarily have known what guacamole was. Plus Avocados were seasonal and only grown certain areas of

California and Florida and so they were expensive. In fact, at nearly five bucks in Avocado, they were apparently often stolen from grocery stores. And they were marketed as fancy foods. If you really wanted to impress your guests, you could serve an Avocado with lobster as an

elegant appetizer. That's actually how I first encountered the Avocado. My mum would serve

a dinner party with a whole where the pit used to be filled with prawn cocktail. Plus, you know, the 60s and 70s. This is also the beginning of the whole crazy fat is bad time in American history and Avocados are pretty fatty and they would have been seen as unhealthy. So the California Avocado Commission responded with a marketing campaign. They poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into this. The first step convinced folks that Avocados are actually healthy.

This body needs good nutrition, including vitamin A, E1, C, E, E to talk to him, Niacin, Ier, and this one just in all in California Avocados for just 153 calories in a luscious and shell. That sexy Avocado fan is the actress Angie Dickinson and she is lying alluringly on her side dressed casually in gold high heels in a shiny white liotard. Just, you know, scooping an avocado out of its skin with a teaspoon as what does in a white liotard.

We've got the video on our website for all of your Avocado eating wardrobe in Sponey.

But that wasn't all the commission did. They funded studies showing that the fat in Avocado helped increase nutrient absorption. They partnered with Harvard to promote the Mediterranean diet, full of so-called healthy fats. This was an all-out Avocado blitz. But there was another problem. And here's a tip, right in them like this, two or three at a time,

“about Avocados right in bed or together. What does body lie to you?”

People were buying these fancy Avocados while they were shiny and green and trying to eat them, which was not nearly as fun and delicious as eating a ripe avocado. The commission even introduced a mascot called Mr. Ripe as in "Make sure your Avocados are actually ripe." And to get some attention, they launched a contest looking for his perfect meat, Ms. Ripe. Wood, quote, "examplify the California lifestyle of good health and healthy eating."

But even with Mr. and Ms. Ripe, and Angie Dickinson encouraging folks to put their Avocados in a paper bag or on the window sill and let them ripen for a few days, the fact remained, "It's annoying to have the plan and advance to get a ripe avocado. Who shops four days ahead?"

And then, Brook Larmor told us that an avocado farmer named Gil Henry came up with a revolutionary idea.

He and his children went out to the local market in their laying and watched people buy Avocados. And he realized that people would go up there and kind of feel around the Avocado. And if they didn't find a ripe one or one that gave a little bit to the thumb push, they would just walk away. In fact, the Avocado commission installed a hidden camera in a California supermarket in the early 1980s and the footage showed shopper after shoppers,

squeezing the fruit and putting it back down. It was just lost sale after lost sale. And so here this idea we will do this. This was invent ripening rooms for Avocados. Gil modeled his Avocado ripening rooms after banana ripening rooms.

They basically refrigerated rooms where the Avocados would hang out and small amounts of

ethylene would be pumped in. Ethylene is a plant hormone and it's what causes the fruit to ripen.

“And so that's very, very important commercially. This way, all the Avocados ripen together”

at more or less the same time before they even land on the grocery store shelf. And so the first in Ralph's grocery stores in Los Angeles, and then that expanded to Kroger, which owned Ralph's, and that became something where that was also a factor in getting people to buy Avocados. Today, all Avocados go through this ripening room process. It's revolutionized the Avocado business. The chances that you can find a ripe ready to eat Avocado at the store are

approximately 100% better than they were in the early 1980s. And so shoppers now put those Avocados in their basket, after squeezing them into a side effect of all this, is that it causes the house Avocado to fully take over the market. Before hand, when Avocados were sold unripe. The green furchae ones look nicer, they were shiny and green, but once they're sold ripe, the furchae's would show any bruises to the soft fruit, while the black house Avocados hide

any small blemishes. So between this massive marketing effort, the invention of the ripening room,

the name change, and the nutrition message, the Avocado is poised to finally become a regular part

of the American diet. But the thing that really pushed it over the edge, much less glamorous than Ms. Ripe, it was a trade agreement. We are about to tell the story of how NAFTA led to the Avocados world domination, but first a quick word from our sponsors. In 1994, the Avocado finally hit the big time, because of the North American free trade agreement. Yep, NAFTA. With something else had to happen first, there was a ban on Mexican Avocados that was imposed way back in 1914,

ostensibly overfears of bowl weevils getting into the agricultural crops in California, and it protected the California farmers from infestation, but it also kind of protected them from cheap competition. So there's this great fear in the United States that opening the doors to Mexican Avocados in this particular industry would destroy the California industry. So when it came to the talks about the Avocado during the NAFTA negotiations? Well, they were

hardly talks. There were more arguments and fights that went into trying to lift this ban. We're extremely heated. I talked to one U.S. distributor who said that he went into this meeting in Southern California to talk about lifting the ban, and he was a distributor, so he favored bringing in Mexican, of course. He said that he was spat at and shouted at and basically kicked out of the meeting. A few years after NAFTA was signed, the ban on Mexican Avocados was finally lifted.

At first, it was just for 19 states in the Northeast. Far away from California, so that the New Englanders could consume Avocados in the winter time. That gradual incremental lifting of that

“restriction was fully enacted by about a decade later, and that's what really led to the explosion.”

And explosion is the right word. Back in 1997, Americans only consumed Avocados in the summer time when the California Avocados were harvested. None of those were imported. You know,

Post NAFTA, Avocado demand has grown exponentially. 25 years ago, Americans were eating barely one pound of Avocado per person per year. Now, it's more than 70 other things that's boomed is ways to eat all that Avocado. To go back again, to when I was a kid in the 80s, encountering Avocados in England, we had them on the half shelf, like Angie Dickinson, though not I hastened to add in a white leotard. You scoop the flesh out with a teaspoon,

and when the pit hole wasn't being filled with something fancy, like prawn cocktail,

“we used to put vinaigrette in there. But that was the only way I knew to eat an Avocado.”

And I don't remember even seeing anything like that, at least not in my house or my friend's houses. I do think my family went out to kind of text mex restaurants on occasion. I remember one down the street from my house in the 80s. In the United States, we have this Mexican-American community that is growing along with the explosion of text mex food. And so people like me and my family started to eat more guacamole in their everyday lives. It also became one of the foods popular

to snack on during the Super Bowl, so the Avocado Commission decided to do a big PR push to get folks to eat even more guacamole during the Super Bowl. Avocado. Avocado. If it's not obvious, they're trying to hypnotize us all into consuming even more guacamole.

And it worked. Super Bowl weekend became one of the most important dates for avocado consumption

in the U.S. According to the Mexican Avocado Association, a full 12% of America's annual avocado consumption takes place during the Super Bowl. But 80% of those are imported and almost nine out of 10 of those imports are from Mexico, specifically from the state of Michoacán. So Americans are eating lots of avocados. That's a win for the marketing campaign. And in theory, the growers, but these avocados are from Mexico. Sounds exactly like the nightmare that the California growers

“were worried about. So did this mean that California avocado farmers were doomed? What happened to them?”

Well, remarkably, this is a case of the rising tide lifting all boats. The year-round availability of avocados helped expand the visibility and attractiveness of avocados for everybody. So there was that the growing market and the explosion among consumers only helped the Californians. Part of this is because Mexico's production actually fills a gap around the California growers season. Under the NAFTA rules, California avocados get priority during their season. And Mexico,

where avocados bloom four times a year, gets everything else. But even if California could extend its season dramatically, the state couldn't possibly meet this new and still growing demand for avocados even if the farmers wanted to. There isn't enough water and land. And so they really need this kind of extra input from Mexican avocados. And so they're, you know, the analysis is that there is a real benefit to the United States economy, not just that California, every cultural

“growers are spared. But also it's adding many, many jobs. I think there's something like”

19,000 jobs, new jobs for American workers, more than $2 billion added to U.S. GDP simply by avocados.

Okay, so California farmers are happy. American avocados eaters are happy. But what about the place where all these avocados are coming from? In Mexico, most of the avocados are grown in a single state, the state of mutual economy, which is in South Central Mexico, not far west of Mexico City that goes down to the Pacific Coast. And it's not something that's run by a big agribusiness. It's actually there are 20,000 individual orchards that are coordinated by a national

association. mutual economy is the only state that's actually legally allowed to export avocados to the U.S. and the state has been completely transformed by avocados. It dominates the agriculture in that state. So what has the rise of the avocado meant for mutual economy? Well, it's interesting. mutual economy is a beautiful state. This has volcanoes and forests.

I remember my first trip to mutual economy way back a few decades ago was to see the sanctuary

where monarch butterflies migrate in the winter from the United States. And these are butterflies that have come three generations or four generations since their original migrants the United States. And they all come back to the same trees in a couple different preserves in mutual estate and in the state of Mexico. That was my first trip and it was just a gorgeous state. These volcanoes and forests are part of why mutual economy is so great for avocados. It has

really fertile soil and lots of rainfall. In California, one of the real issues is water because avocados trees are extremely thirsty. mutual economy is blessed with, I think more than 70 percent of the orchards are naturally fed by springs, rivers, natural irrigation.

at least for now, is what the avocado is doing to all those gorgeous forests.

“The Mexican environmental authorities estimate that about 50,000 acres a year are deforested”

in the state of Michoacana. It's a big problem and it's not just because of avocado farms, but they are one of the causes. We ask Mario the researcher who works on forest and water issues. The natural forest has been deforested for three main causes. A illegal logging

for his fires and avocado planting. On about 30 percent of that is due to avocado growing.

The growers association will respond that, well, actually these new orchards, most of these new orchards were previously used for other crops that have transferred their growing to avocados because they're much more lucrative. So the avocado is not the only culprit here. And in case you were worried about the future of the monarch butterflies, the forests that are being cut down for avocados aren't the ones where the monarchs go to spend the winter. Those are

higher up in colder areas that aren't as good for avocado farming. But still, as an avocado eater, I would love to enjoy my daily dose of creamy green goodness without contributing to deforestation. Mario told us that there had been some discussion about a law that would protect the forest

and actually require avocado growers to return 10 percent of their cultivated land to wild forest.

I am not optimistic of this situation. The growers fought back. And the government wasn't interested in pushing this law partly because it has bigger things to deal with like drugs and partly because Mario thinks that corrupt government officials are making money from avocados. So what should a concerned avocado eater do? Mario says that, in fact, we are the ones who can

“make a difference. The only way to protect is that for example, that you need this says,”

said, "I don't buy you more avocados if you continue the forest in your lands." This strategy that American demand can make a difference, it worked in the past. Mario said that avocado crops had been poorly handled. There were lots of pesticides left on in bacteria, but Americans wouldn't put up with that. So Mexican farmers improved their farming methods to meet the demand. Mario thinks the same thing could happen with the forests,

that if U.S. consumers demand avocados that don't contribute to deforestation, that could help save the forests. But there's also another problem in which you are calling, which is that this is the center of the Mexican drug war. Drug cartels in Mexico have made so much money from Americans looking to smoke pot and take meth that they have actually pretty much replaced the government

in some places. They are super-powerful along the west coast and in Michoacán, too.

So you can imagine when avocado profits in the last one a year started to rise, the cartels were quite interested. Michoacán Avocados are known as autobiography, Green Gold. And the cartels became kind of an insidious influence within the avocado industry. There were different groups, one called the Knights Templar, who kind of had this medieval civil war record and came in, but extorted growers, kidnapped owners, usurped land. They created a kind of almost an

war-like situation for growers. It became very dangerous for the larger owners especially. Today, the Knights Templar have faded from the scene, La Família, Michoacán, has stated from the scene. And now there's a small splinter group called Los Biagres, which is apparently named for the leader who had heavily moved hair that kind of stood on its end. On one level, if anyone is going to control the testicle free trade, it should be the Viagra gang.

But seriously, cartel violence is a gigantic problem. You may have even noticed reports in the US media in recent years about blood avocados. I mean, it's not just that we don't want to eat something that's contributing to deforestation. I definitely don't want to eat something that's supporting the cartels. But Brooke tells us that in the past couple years, things have looked up a little. In response to a lot of this cartel activity, many of these smaller towns have created

self-defense militias, usually formed by the owners themselves, many of the owners have teamed together to try to keep the peace and keep their avocados. There's one place in particular called Tansitaro, which has become kind of famous as the last place where has this kind of self-defense militia. It's like an 80-person force where they surround their town with checkpoints and the producers have to work with armed bodyguards. But it's they've now celebrated 40 years without a kidnapping,

which is considered a success. So the cartels are still an influence on it. Although they haven't really slowed down production, which is quite amazing. And again, like the deforestation issue,

“the cartel violence is not entirely the avocados, both. I mean, first of all, I think that the drug”

cartels were not created by avocados. They happened to attract the cartels because of their lucrative nature. And actually, Mario says that avocados have been really good from each

many communities that was in the poverty, now they are in economic based conditions. And those economic benefits mean that more people can stay in their homes with their families. Mitchell Khan is a huge sending community or has been a sending area for migrants to the United States. But avocados have kept more people closer to the land without necessarily meeting to migrate. Great to know that we can enjoy Mexican avocados with very little guilt. Because

frankly, what would happen to the Instagram feeds of millennials if you took away their avocados

“just getting don't write a angry email? And for even less guilt, if you want to get rid of that”

lingering worry that your avocados from Mexico are contributing to deforestation. Right now, the best you can do is look for an organic rainforest alliance or equal exchange label. Rainforest alliance and equal exchange avocados are hard to find. An organic doesn't specifically guarantee that a grower is not cutting down virgin forest, but it does mean that the cultivation is less intensive and doesn't believe the ground water is much. Not a perfect solution, but one that

means you can go ahead and have your avocado and eat it on toast. Just don't expect to be able to buy a house as well. As some would have you think, but is it true? That's coming up after a word from our sponsors. Do you think it's true? Yeah, it's true. It's so sweet. The one who just understands it. A girl on a studio, a job, or a home. It's true. It's true. It's true.

Safe. With what? So I was actually talking to someone yesterday and I was like, oh, I'm going to do an interview for a podcast about avocado toast. And they were like, yeah, what? It's like, what is it exactly? I'm not really sure understand. I'm like, it's literally what it sounds like. It's avocado on toast. This is Lauren Oiler again, journalist and author of an in-depth look at the origins of avocado toast. And in case you've been living in a cave for the past few years,

avocado toast is having something of a moment right now. I feel like it came to avocado appreciation relatively late in life. I grew up in West Virginia and it's not like we didn't have avocado toast there, but it's not like one of the main food groups as it is in somewhere like New York

or LA or even Berlin where are you still live? Lauren first noticed avocado being served on toast

just a few years ago when she moved to Berlin after college. I don't really remember eating it in college and I graduated in 2012. And then when I lived in Berlin, there are a lot of Australians

“living there and there are a lot of Australian cafes and I think that is probably the first time”

that I really noticed it on a menu. This is kind of late in avocado toast terms or at least in terms of the current wave of avocado toast because the question of avocado toast's origins is a tricky one because you could certainly argue that avocado on a tortilla is the original avocado toast right but I think that's a fundamentally different eating experience though it may be a predecessor to avocado toast. I'm probably certainly is a predecessor to avocado toast.

Which today is basically mashed avocado on toast with maybe salt and pepper and a few

beautiful garnishes like Nicky's pickled pink radishes. That avocado toast is now found on the menu at restaurants and cafes basically everywhere but Lauren wondered where did it first come from this current incarnation of avocado toast. There's truth to the idea that Australia popularized avocado toast in the way that we know it today which is as a sort of like glamorous snack or meal that one can take a nice photo of for one's Instagram account.

“Generally the first menu avocado toast is said to be at a cafe called bills I think in 1993 and”

Sydney bills is a trendy old-day restaurant run by a well-known Australian chef called Bill Granger.

He has confessed that he had no idea what he was starting when he first put avocado toast on his

menu. He says he just thought avocado was a nice thing to have with a bit of tomato on some toast. He probably was to recipe for avocado toast and he put in his cookbook and he was sort of like I felt dumb putting a recipe for this in my cookbook because it's like so easy and obvious that you shouldn't need a recipe but I needed to fill a page. It wasn't an overnight success but then a little more than a decade later an Australian chef named Chloe Osborn put avocado toast

on the menu at Cafe Jutan in Manhattan and then came Gueneth. Paltrow in case you're not on first

moment when avocado toast went from being a thing you ate to a cultural phenomenon so much

“so that Miley Cyrus has a tattoo of half an avocado on her upper left arm but when we say phenomenon”

really it's kind of crazy how much the avocado and avocado toast of course have taken over. From toast to guacamole, avocados are seemingly everywhere so that but then I also talked to some people who grew up in California in the 70s and they were like yeah wait avocado toast too. Yet not everyone is on board with the Bill's Cafe Jutan, Gueneth origins story for avocado toast. Turns out people have been mashing avocado on to grain-based products for a while.

After I published that article someone messaged me saying that her sister or something

had spent a lot of time in Tel Aviv and that they always ate avocado in just two so they she

thought that that meant that they had invented it. This was my experience. I first fell in love with avocado in the 90s when I was living in Israel and everyone just sliced avocado and put it on bread and sprinkled some salt on it and I was like this is delicious not revolutionary just delicious.

“But I think trying to pinpoint the origin of it is a fool's errand. No shit.”

But the real question is why? Why has avocado toast transcended its status as snack to become a symbol of everything? Part of it is that it's become something that somehow seems pure and fresh and healthy and the good fatty and somehow just perfect. I think as a status symbol the avocado toast does sort of advertise a certain lifestyle which is like a wellness healthy lifestyle which now is a kind of status symbol and along with like doing yoga or going to soul cycle or going on

vacation to like Joshua Tree or something avocado toast can like signify a certain kind of person and a certain kind of aspirational lifestyle and it turns out that avocado toast is the perfect visual aid to advertise that lifestyle. It is the Instagram food par excellence. At one point British

Vogue reported that three million new pictures of avocado toast are uploaded to Instagram every day

which truly says something about our time. I can't even wrap my head around that figure. So why in the world has avocado toast taken over Instagram what makes it such a perfect model

“once again Lauren has the analysis. I think the color green of an avocado is bright and”

alluring but it's not so bright that you can't pair it with other colors so you often see like a radish on avocado toast or maybe like shaved beats or some kind of beat like thing and so with the contrasting with the pink or the purple it looks really really nice. It's beautiful and healthy and it's expensive. In May Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Garner said this about millennials. When I was trying to buy my first home I wasn't

buying snatch avocado for $19 and four copies at $4 each. What? So there was a controversy semi-recently in which I think in Australian investor or millionaire or some sort of rich Australian non-millennial was deriding the millennial generation and saying that we couldn't. The reason we couldn't afford to buy houses is because we were spending so much money on avocado toast and four coffees at cost four dollars. A tsunami of people helpedfully told this dude that he had his

head up as ass and the real reason millennials come by homes is not actually because they're spending all their money on avocado toast. But because of raging and coming inequality and this the subprime mortgage crisis and all the sort of economic stuff that has been pushed onto us from the older generations. And while I agree with the structural critique of his statement, I also do feel like avocado toast is quite expensive and also it's something that you can

make at home for a very cheap and so I don't want to say I see worries coming from because there's a stupid comment but avocado toast is quite expensive. I mean like you can get it for like $13 at some places in New York which is more than I'm gonna spend on a piece of toast shall we say look I get it sometimes you're out at a cafe and they have awesome bread and they put fun garnishes on it and you want a piece of avocado toast for Lauren though it's come to mean something

more. When I encounter avocado toast on a menu today I also have this sort of like pain list feeling of yearning because I at least still cannot justify ordering it in a restaurant though

I see people doing it all the time and I'm always like if only I were like I feel like there's

it's some income level I will be friends enough to order an avocado toast in a restaurant but

Miley Cyrus having an avocado tattoo or avocado toast breaking Instagram and denying a whole

“generation home ownership you think we must be at peak avocado but no because of the future of”

avocados it's probably not in the US at all. In the year 2010 there were fewer than two tons avocados imported into China a small sedan compared that many avocados but since then it has become much more widespread mostly among young millennials in the upper middle class but as a healthy

fruit and it's known in China as the butter fruit which seems to me like a perfect name for the avocado

because that's exactly what it feels like when you eat it so buttery. So okay in 2010 there was a

“car load of butter fruit sold in the whole of China that was the situation a little more than a”

decade ago. Last year 32,000 tons were imported into China and this is partly a marketing campaign and also partly kind of a young urban middle class reaching for a global craze. Brooks says Chinese

entrepreneurs are building ripening rooms for avocados they're starting to talk about growing avocados

in China. We've had our boom here in the US and now that boom is moving on to other shores. Chinese have an unbelievable ability to adapt and incorporate new things into their cuisine.

“They are omnivores of the first order and also have a very very widely diverse palette.”

And the avocado is a flavor carrier in China as in South East Asia they're also able to see it as a fruit they don't mind a fruit that looks like a vegetable or are using it both for sweet and savory outcomes. In fact Brooks says that in the southernmost part of China near the border of Myanmar avocado is already popular. It's used in salads with tomato and onion like a kind of proto guacamole and it also goes into shakes where it gets blended up with condensed milk.

Sometimes with powdered chocolate added for good measure. This is pretty common around the world you find avocado ice cream and avocado shakes. It's only starting to catch on here we still seem to think of avocados mostly in savory dishes. But Brooks says we can't even imagine how big avocados are going to get in China. The avocado is journey from Mesoamerican backyards to world domination still has a way to go. One of the guys that I quoted in the piece is guys Steve Barnard

who's one of the biggest distributors in the world dreams like every entrepreneur of introducing four chunks of avocado in every little soup, every bowl of noodle soup in China. Thanks this episode to Brooke Lomer, freelance journalist avocado pancier in New York times on money columnist and also to Lauren Oiler, freelance journalist and avocado toast as fire as well as to Mary Lou Arpea and Eric folk of UC Riverside and Luis Mario Tapio Vargas

at the Mexican National Research Institute for Forests and Agriculture. We've linked to their articles and publications and websites on our website gastropod.com. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with a brand new episode for your listening delight. [BELL RINGING]