Fruit
Avocado
Also called hass avocado
A fatty fruit you mash or slice — Hass is the corrugated dark one that oils up when ripe. Toast, tacos, arepas and ajiaco all use the flesh as richness, not as a flavour bomb. It is not a vegetable, and a rock-hard avocado is not a salad yet.
Origin
Mesoamerica, now grown from Mexico and Peru to California and Australia. Hass dominates shops because it travels; other varieties are silkier and rarer in a supermarket.
Flavour
Buttery, nutty, mild, faintly grassy when underripe. Overripe flesh is stringy and tastes of rancid nuts. Lemon does not add avocado flavour; it only slows the brown.
How to use it
Ripe fruit yields to a gentle press at the stem end, not a thumb-bruise in the middle. Split, stone, scoop. For smashed avocado, salt properly, add lemon or lime, and eat it now — it is not a make-ahead. Ajiaco and arepas want slices or a chunk, not a purée. Oil and acid keep it pleasant; sugar does not. A brown surface scrape is fine; brown-through and stringy is compost. Underripe halves will not ripen once cut. Do not cook avocado hard — it turns bitter and metallic.
Storage
Ripen on the counter, then fridge to hold a day or two. Cut faces pressed with cling film and acid last a few hours, not a day. Never freeze hoping for toast mash; the texture dies.
Recipes using it
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