CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



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If so generally eaten in countries where they are so plentiful, it is logical 

 to believe they will be eaten here when they are more plentiful and people 

 are more familiar with their good qualities. 



The taste for them is exceedingly easy to form. In fact, about the 

 only thing necessary to have people like the avocado is to give them a good 

 one in proper condition and show them how to eat it. 



I believe the word "salad" has done more to injure the introduction 

 of the avocado than most emything else. We are not a salad eating race, 

 like the French, for instance. The impression has seemingly gotten well 

 established that avocados are only eaten in salads by the idle rich who have 

 cultivated a taste for the things. TTie people say they are not of the idle 

 rich, they do not care for salads and they have not cultivated a taste for 

 them, so why should they eat them? 



A very small percentage of the people in the United States have ever 

 tasted an avocado. In fact, the great majority of them have never heard 

 of an avocado. 



The following, with some slight modifications, probably, I have heard 

 at least once or twice a week for the past two years, in fact ever since I 

 have been growing avocado trees. "What are avocados? What do they 

 taste like?" I tell them it is a tropical fruit with a taste all of its own 

 that makes mighty fine eating and suggest that they may have heard of it 

 under the name "Alligator Pear." "Oh, is that it? They are those things 

 that sell so high that they make salad of." The salad idea is so firmly 

 rooted that often a look of distrust and disgust plainly shows that they 

 think you are "stringing" them when you explain that salad is a very small 

 part of their use. These are not all tourists nor tenderfeet from back Ezist 

 either. I have had the above repeated by people who have been in Califor- 

 nia long enough to be called old settlers. 



Then we meet another kind who tell you very emphatically they do 

 not like avocados. They bought one and it tasted like soap if it tasted like 

 anything. It is very evident the avocado that was unfortunate enough to 

 fall into such hands was not in proper condition. 



When one tastes and tries three times with good avocados in proper 

 condition and still insists he does not like avocados, I advise he consult a 

 specialist about his taster for there is surely something wrong with it. 



I was once on a time served avocado sandwiches, so called. I first 

 got a taste of onion, then I detected lemon juice, then my mouth was afire 

 with pepper, then I got a dose of oil and I had not even tasted the avocado 

 yet. My hostess whom I knew very well, indeed, insisted on my having a 

 second helping, for she knew I must be fond of avocados as I was raising 

 them for a living, etc. I told her I was sure fond of avocado sandwiches 

 but I had not tasted any avocado yet. I do not use pepper, I never did 

 like onions and since I was a small boy and had to take oil, I always had a 

 distaste for it. I told her that her avocado sandwiches reminded me of a 

 class in school when a girl was asked to describe a crab. She said a crab 

 is a red fish that swims backward. The teacher told her that a crab was 

 not a fish, it was not red and it did not swim backward, but otherwise she 

 said her description was probably all right. 



I am fond of salads and sandwiches when properly made but just why 

 anyone should add oil to the avocado which is already from 1 2 to 30 per 

 cent fat, or why they should spoil the delightful taste of an avocado with 



