Malagasy Avocados: A California Girl’s Disappointment (6/27)

At Ranomafana as we began our trek, our guide pointed out some wild avocado trees to us. Now, I’m a true California girl, raised on guacamole. When my mother didn’t have anything to pack me for lunch she would put an avocado and a spoon in a bag and send me off to school. So - having spent the last five months in New Jersey, far from the Mexican food I love - when I realized there were avocados here in Madagascar, I got really excited. I was just short of scraping the squashed fallen wild avocados off the trail with my bare hands – that excited. When we got back from our trek, we gave our guide a ride back into town and he showed me where I could buy avocados in the market.

I picked up three at 200 Ariary a piece. They were rounder and smoother than what I was used to – not at all like the oval, bumpy-skinned fruit I was used to. Still, I had high hopes. When we went to the little hotely where we had lunch, I asked for a knife and a plate right away – I wanted my avocados now (and Malagasies are just chill like that: Gaia wanted a dish that the restaurant didn’t have, so she went across the street to a different hotely, ordered, spoke with the manager, waited, and came back to eat with us in our hotely with her entire meal brought over from the other place! No one seemed annoyed in the least!)

Anyways, back to the avocado story…

I eagerly cut the fruit, and split it into halves. The pit was huge, leaving very little edible flesh. I sliced off a piece with the knife and put it in my mouth. DISGUSTING! It tasted watery and flavorless – not at all like the rich, creamy avocados of California. Still, I was hungry and my meal still hadn’t arrived. I dug into the other one. Just as gross. Gaia said the Malagasies eat avocados as a dessert with sugar. I was skeptical, but I was willing to do anything to improve the horrible flavor, so I took some of the sugar that had come with Francesca’s coffee and sprinkled it on the pale green flesh. Still gross, if not worse than before.

Saddened, I took the third avocado home just so that I could take a picture of it for you, dear readers [see above]. This last avocado had the most flesh out of the three, but still, after just a few forced bites, I simply had to throw it out. I’ll wait another few weeks until I can have the real deal, the food of my birthplace.
Maybe I’ll even have my mom meet me at the airport with an avocado and a spoon.