Avocado quality downward spiral...

[guido]

What a frustrating year for Avocados. Started wonderfully, maybe a bit early, lots of great product. Ripened easily to a rich buttery texture and a perfect taste. But the last three weeks have been horrible. They go straight from hard to over-ripe with black spots and grainy texture. Is new england the only area suffering in this circle of culinary hell?

Man I'm jealous of you So. Cal. guys...

[Too Tall]

Sorry buddy. Sounds like you are getting cold storage goods. Try putting them in a paper bag and see if that brings them to ripness without unevenness.

Rubbing salt in your wounds...our neighbor works for the Mexican Embassy. They have their "special" avacados flown in once a year and we get a bag full. Oh my.

[Dave Thompson]

This is the time of year for the small avocados, even in Mexico.

The avocados you New England gringos get are not only small, they're picked early, shipped a long way, from Mexico or Peru, in cold storage, sit in a refrigerated distribution center waited to be cold trucked to your local market. It's very difficult, even for me, retired from the supermarket biz, to tell which one is a good avocado. They're usually universally shitty. But it's typical US supermarket produce.

I've found that the best, consistently good avocados are sold by Costco. A day or two in a brown paper bag will turn out excellent avocados.

Or you could visit me in Mexico, no bad days or bad avocados!

[robin3mj]

Ha. I was in NJ this weekend with the extended family and my sis in law and I had a long conversation extolling the virtues of avocado toast. At which time we made some and agreed that that particular avocado was of perfect ripeness and exemplary taste. Not to mention aesthetically could stand in for the one on the cover of the Pearl Jam album.

[boots2000]

Must be an east coast thing.
I just bought some Reed avocados this morning- the size of a babies head!

[guido]

Place I get them has had great Avocados most of the summer for the past 12 years I have been shopping there. Just this year seems to be so off...

I'll just have to go to Mexico then!

[joosttx]

Must be an east coast thing.
I just bought some Reed avocados this morning- the size of a babies head!

I havent noticed any quality issues or heard of any. I had one last night and it was great. I remeber back in the day whne I lived in Outside of frenso guys would be selling the best tasting one for 3 for $1 from the road

[vertical_doug]

Since you are in the Northeast and it is the best time for farm to table, why not focus on fresh corn on the cob, squash, radish, zuchini, tomatoes, peppers, etc... I think you will quickly realize your glass is more than half full.

Buy local

[guido]

Since you are in the Northeast and it is the best time for farm to table, why not focus on fresh corn on the cob, squash, radish, zuchini, tomatoes, peppers, etc... I think you will quickly realize your glass is more than half full.

Buy local

Nearly all of the veggies I eat this time of year are from my garden. Can't get more local than that. But one of the true joys of summer is homegrown Brandywine tomato and Avocado salad. 1/2 of the ingredients are amazing this year, the other half: Meh...

[Noteddy]

The avocados we get in the states are the Cavendish bananas of the avocado world. When my daughter was in Chile she was introduced to more than a dozen types all with different flavors, textures, rich, sweet, meaty, big, small, etc. We get the ones we can grow here at scale and/or that will travel. If you get a chance to travel in SA, check out the markets.

[Dave Thompson]

An avocado (potential quality) hint: you can check the country of origin on most produce, it's printed on that little sticker that's attached to the avocado/banana/whatever. If it's traveled a long way, ya takes yer chances.

[Tamu8104]

Down here we haven't had issues other than it seems like we are getting lots of early picked avocados. It's harder to find ripe avacados for a meal that night but all of ours have been good with a brown paper bag and patience.

[bking]

a 100 years ago or so I served a mission for our church in the Yucatan Peninsula, lived about a year of it in Merida. Great city. In the back yard was an avocado tree. Huge thing. And on it grew avocados the size of small to medium cantaloupe, and they were common there. Anyone know why we don't see those here?