Popenoe: Avocados as Food in Guatemala 



101 



admitted that the avocado is dehcious. 

 It is a taste which grows upon one. The 

 deHcately rich flavor of its soft creamy 

 flesh is pleasant and satisfying to a 

 degree rarely experienced. While it is 

 most commonly eaten with the addition 

 of nothing more than a little salt and a 

 dash of vinegar or lemon juice, it blends 

 admirably with certain other foods. In 

 Guatemala, for example, it is the custom 

 to add diced avocado to meat soups at 

 the time of serving, while in Cuba a 

 delicious omelet is made by adding 

 finely diced avocado in the same manner 

 as cheese is used in the North. 



Granting that the avocado can be 

 grown successfully in the United States, 

 a statement no longer open to question, 

 what may we expect of it in the future ? 

 It is not my purpose to offer prophecies, 

 but to point out by a brief description 

 of conditions in Central America, what 

 the avocado can mean to a people who 

 have an abundant supply of the fruit 

 during a large part of the year. 



The Maya race, which formerly in- 

 habited the lowlands of southern Mexico, 

 Guatemala, and northern Honduras, is 

 broken up into various tribes now occu- 

 pying the highlands of Guatemala, ex- 

 tending northward into the lowlands of 

 Yucatan, Tabasco, and Chiapas. Like 

 their ancestors, the Mayas are an agri- 

 cultural people whose principal crop is 

 maize or Indian corn. They supplement 

 this staple article of diet with squashes, 

 beans, avocados, meat and a few other 

 products. 



In certain portions of the Maya terri- 

 tory the avocado is eminently at home. 

 It not only grows in almost every door- 

 yard, but also in the edges of cultivated 

 fields and along the roadsides, yielding 

 generously of its handsome fruit, al- 

 though it receives no care from man. 

 This is particularly true in those sec- 

 tions of the Guatemalan highlands 

 which are occupied by the Cakchikel, 

 Kiche and Kekchi tribes. The long 

 ripening season makes it possible to 

 eat avocados during eight months of 

 the year; their abundance results in 

 their being so cheap that only the best 

 varieties have any monetary value at 

 all, inferior ones, such as small fruits 

 with very large seeds, not bringing 



enough to pa}' for carrying them to 

 market. The best fruits, when offered 

 for sale in the little Indian villages 

 tucked away in the Guatemalan moun- 

 tains, may realize as much as two 

 re ales each — ^the equivalent of about 

 half a cent. Ordinary fruits seldom 

 bring more than a real. 



Here, then, is an interesting state of 

 affairs: avocados in abundance, and at 

 prices which place them within the 

 reach of the poorest villager. If avo- 

 cados are ever to assume an important 

 place in the dietary of any people, we 

 would say, they should certainly do so 

 here. 



PRACTICALLY REPLACES MEAT 



It is difficult for one who has not 

 actually visited these regions to appre- 

 ciate the extent to which the avocado 

 replaces meat in the dietary of these 

 industrious folk. It must be under- 

 stood that meat, in Guatemala, is a 

 luxury to be indulged in mainly by the 

 well-to-do, its use among the poorer 

 classes being very limited. 



Let me illustrate the Guatemalan's 

 attitude toward the avocado by a few 

 incidents which came under my ob- 

 servation. My assistant on numerous 

 collecting trips among the Guatemalan 

 mountains was a full-blooded Kekchi 

 Indian, Jose Cabnal of Coban. In 

 telling me of the customs of his people 

 he touched upon the question of food. 

 "Four or five tortillas," said he, "a 

 good sized avocado, and a cup of coffee — 

 this we look upon as a good meal." 

 The tortilla, as is well known to many 

 Americans, is nothing more than a thin 

 cake made from maize, which has been 

 treated with lye and ground coarsely on 

 a stone. 



Later, while stopping one noon in 

 the village of Panajachel, high up in 

 the mountains on the border of Lake 

 Atitlan, I chanced to step out into the 

 central plaza or square, where there 

 were a number of Indian car?^adores 

 en route from Solola to Guatemala 

 City with loads'' of pottery on their 

 backs. They had stopped for their 

 noonday meal, and as I approached 

 them I saw that each one had half an 

 avocado in one hand, which he ate with 



