Avocado-re-mi
Historically, the avocado was called an ‘alligator pear,’ a ‘butter pear,’ and ‘ahuacatl,’ or ‘testicle.’ If you have glanced at even one single food blog, Instagram, review or magazine in the last three years, the thought ‘testicle toast’ came unbidden into your brain, and I sincerely apologize for that. Of course, maybe you haven’t. There are two types of people in the world: people who love avocados and people who need you to please, please, please, just shut up about avocados. Both of these groups are aware, some dimly, some keenly, that in this year of our Lord of the 24 Hour News Cycle 2018, that avocados are trending. It leads some people to wonder: Where did this popularity come from? What does it mean? And when, pray tell, will it end?
Demand for avocados from U.S. consumers tends to peak around the Superbowl and the Fourth of July. After that the trees keep producing, until December, but people buy fewer and fewer. Outside of the US, Australia and New Zealand have shown an appetite, with Aussies consuming a large supply of Kiwi fruit — er, avocados. In the 70s, California producers went on an advertising binge focused on branding avocados as a health food, high fat content be damned. Since then, as menus and palates have expanded farther than ever before, more and more of them include the avocado. McDonalds’s has come out with a nationally available guacamole burger. Farmers in South Africa are starting to grow the fruit in wider range than they ever have before, hoping the high prices and sales numbers will outlive the approximate six years it takes to get a commercial avocado growing operation up and running.
The avocado lives a life as a symbol: of millennial food, and of millennials more generally. #Avocadotoast it is. Season one of Netflix’s reboot of queer eye features Antoni Porowski pushing the fruit, in the form of guacamole on multiple unsuspecting Georgians. Porowski’s stove-free, no-worries, a-man-a-can-a-plan approach to the kitchen has attracted criticism before, not least for a moment at which he also added Greek yogurt to guacamole because it “has so much less fat than sour cream,” which is a little like making a hole in the wall with an ergonomically designed hammer because the grip is better for your hand. Anyone with even a passive familiarity with avocados, guacamole, or yogurt had to turn off their laptop and take a few deep, centering breaths.
The fruits are known for instigating palm and finger injuries. ‘Avocado hand,’ as the resulting injuries are termed, has struck celebrities and chefs as well as regular Joe Avocados. In a similar circumstance to the well-known issues with bagels, the round, roly-poly avocado requires a hack to the hardwood pit to open. The ailment is preventable by avoiding the use of knives, which shouldn’t be necessary for opening a ripe avocado. A ready-to-eat fruit should give way under pressure applied by fingers and spoons. On Queer Eye, Porowski made no mention of this in multiple scenes teaching others how to make guac.
The reason people hack, even though it is unnecessary and also kind of dangerous, is simple: they want the avocado to look good. Yes, you are opening the avocado you bought to eat it. You might also be trying for two perfectly rounded halves for styling. A spooned avocado is unquestionably delicious, but it is not pretty. You want a photogenic product for your own personal brand marketing purposes: you want people to know, via photographic proof on their phones, that you have bought and are eating a ripe avocado.
So the avocado functions as a status symbol. Like many such symbols, it is intimately associated with youth. And in 2018, youth means ‘millennial.’
How the fruit became associated with millennials is somewhat obscure. A lot of restaurant and food trends are born, live and die without too much mainstream media comment. Like fashions, some foods become inextricably linked with a certain time or place. Sundried tomatoes and brown lipstick? 1990s. Circle skirts and jell-o tomatoes? 1950s. And again like apparel, food can carry cultural, social and economic anxieties. Are skirt hems too high and necklines too low? What is the difference between paleo and keto diets and what are you going to give everybody at Thanksgiving if they’re still trying to follow them? Are young people struggling economically because they’re not getting paid enough? Or are they just spending it wrong?
Media coverage of avocado-and-millennial pairing seems to have come about in May 2017 when an Australian millionaire and property developer named Tim Gurner 60 Minutes that “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” sparking rage and loathing all over the internet. It was truly the pits. (Sorry.) It also sparked some fact-checking. What Gurner was trying to tell millennials is sort of beside the point: what millennial-aged people heard was, “If you want a house, stop buying over-priced avocado-based menu items.” And what they said unto Gurner, in unison, and very loudly, was “We’re not doing that. What are you talking about?” Avocados show up on ads targeted towards young people, as companies’ way of telling young people that they, or their PR group, keep up with Twitter. Popular fast-fashion and future landfill purveyors Romwe and She-In regularly feature avocado-printed accessories and clothing.
Interestingly, an August report by a fresh fruits and vegetables industry media organization found that millennials are the least likely of any age group to buy avocados. Huh. USDA cost of food guidelines, in which budgets for household members are differentiated by age and gender, are silent on what room avocados can take in the budget.
A Chicago Tribune piece about a bakery of a day ago went with the cheery headline “Eat This! Lost Larson Creates A Stunning Avocado Toast, and It Costs Less Than A House.” It’s a new bakery in the Andersonville area, where the median home listing price is $499,900. They don’t list prices on their website, but the few Yelp reviews that come up mention a $9 loaf of bread.
