Edible Products. 



42 



no doubt accounts to a large extent for the dislike or indifference often professed 

 by persons tasting the avocado for the first time. As in the case of the olive, where 

 the novice usually describes the fruit as an insipid pickle, the appearance of the 

 avocado leads one to expect a sweet or acid fruit, and the more or less unconscious 

 disappointment usually leads the experimenter to pronounce the avocado tasteless 

 and oily. One writer describes it as having a " taste not much like that of our 

 pears (the avocado is often called ' alligator pear '), and in first trying to eat the 

 fruit one may pronounce it a poor pear but a good kind of pumpkin," and adds 

 the charitable suggestion that " cooking or preserving may bring out the 

 hidden virtues." 



Few persons who live for any length of time in countries where avocados 

 are to be had fail to acquire a taste for this delicious salad fruit. It is the rule, 

 however, that the taste for an entirely new article of diet has to be cultivated, 

 and a food which was unknown to our fathers, and which we meet for the first 

 time after our tastes have been formed is seldom accepted at the first trial. In 

 most cases it is only after repeated attempts, prompted usually by the assurances 

 of the initiated, that a fondness for the strange article begins to grow. The human 

 taste is, however, fairly uniform, and a liking for any food that is popular in its 

 native country is usually acquired by the stranger if his first attempts do not 

 create a prejudice so strong as to prevent further experiments. As examples of 

 foods that when first tried outside of their native country were by most people 

 either disliked or considered insipid, but which have since become firmly established 

 may be mentioned olives, bananas, artichokes, chocolate, tomatoes, curries, and 

 peppers. With avocados the taste is usually acquired after two or three attempts, 

 and many profess a fondness for the fruit at the first trial. That the taste when 

 once acquired amounts almost to a craving is attested by prices paid for the fruit 

 in the northern markets, where 15 cents each is about the lowest figure at which 

 they can be bought, and good fruit usually sells as high as 30 cents, though 50 

 or 60 cents is not an uncommon price. The avocado may thus be said to have taken 

 the first steps along the lines by which most foreign fruits have been successfully 

 introduced. An early impetus was received when the fruit was served on the 

 tables of the rich and fashionable, its intrinsic merit being aided, without doubt, 

 by the desire to inaugurate a novelty at once rare and expensive. The tendency 

 to imitate this use assisted in increasing the demand until the fashionable hotels 

 were able to score a point by adding the fruit to their menus. From this stage 

 to that of introduction into the markets and fruit stores, where the general public 

 will make its acquaintance, is, perhaps, the slowest and most crucial step in the 

 history of a successful new product, and one that the avocado is at present 

 undergoing. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY: EARLY ACCOUNTS. 



What appears to be the earliest reference to the avocado is found in Oviedo's 

 report to Charles V. of Spain, in the year 1526, a translation of which follows :— 



On the mainland are certain trees that are called pear trees (perales). They 

 are not pear trees like those of Spain, but are held in no less esteem ; rather does 

 this fruit have many advantages over the pears of that country. These are certain 

 large trees, with long narrow leaves similar to the laurel, but larger and more 

 green. This tree produces certain pears, many of which weigh more than a pound, 

 and some less, but usually a pound, a little more or less ; and the colour and shape 

 is that of true pears, and the skin is somewhat thicker, but softer, and in the 

 middle it holds a seed like a peeled chestnut ; but it is very bitter, as was said 

 farther back of the mamm.ee, except that here it is of one piece and in the mammee 

 of three, but it is similarly bitter and of the same form ; and over this seed is a 

 delicate membrane, and between it and the primary skin is that which is eaten, 



