Today is Saturday, a friend gave me 5 big and pretty avocados. I was very excited this afternoon, tried to make some guacamole but the taste was blah.
Here is the recipe but strangely the beautiful avocados here didn’t yield a tasteful guacamole. I don’t know if they put excess of pesticide or what, because my guacamole didn’t taste like the real thing.
Ingredients
Guacamole
3 avocados - peeled, pitted, and mashed
1 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup diced onion
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)
Directions
1.In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Mix in onion, cilantro, tomatoes, and garlic. Stir in cayenne pepper. Refrigerate 1 hour for best flavor, or serve immediately.
No they are not altered by pesticides, generally you cannot taste pesticides. Plus, how do you know that the avocados you have eaten somewhere else do not have pesticides? And if they had pesticides, they may have altered the taste according to your theory, and therefore the avocados without pesticides may taste strange to you.
Just pointing out flaws in your logical progression here.
Many plants and fruit in Taiwan are different. Newsflash, Taiwan is not Canada, Taiwan is in Asia, and has a huge variety of fruit and veg that you will have never come across before. This is normal.
This reminds me of the thread where an Italian went into Cafe Grazie and complained that the pasta didn’t taste like pasta in Italy. :roflmao:
Next time try going into a fruit shop in Taiwan and looking for an orange. Tell me how you get on. My guess is there will be 5-10 different ‘oranges’ for your enjoyment.
That’s a Haas, and you do get them from time to time. I saw half-a-dozen in the fruit shop a few months back and snapped one up; it tasted as expected. The local variety is (I think) Fuerte, and I’m almost certain they’re picked unripe. If you get a squashy one, it does make passable guacamole.
Asian avocados taste different than Californian or Mexican avocados. I saw some New Zealand avocados at the Costco in new Taipei city near nangang exhibition center MRT (shih chih) last week. They are Haas and tasted as expected. Not cheap though.
They’re picked when they’re as hard as bricks, and that can’t do anything for the (lack of) flavour. I’ve got one here that is still not ready to eat, 10 days after buying it.
Can’t drink it in a shake though. Avocado shake - what are the locals thinking of? Maybe it’s me being conditioned to avocado being a savoury item.
Locals will tell you it is a fruit, as it comes from a tree. Same as tomatoes, from a vine. And beans, can’t you taste they are sweet? As said, different strokes for diff’rent folks.
Yep, I got a fellow countrywoman who makes a mean guacamole using local avocados, vbut heaven knows I haven’t been able to repet such a feat. Haas or nothing for me.
Interestingly, in the old country we do not have Haas, we also have the green avocados, but somehow the flavor is still “sweater” even when not completely ripe -which we use for salads.
It is the same with chayotes. They pick them too early for my taste here. Then they cannot get ripe enough to be baked or in other savory dishes. :lick:
not to nitpick but technically they are fruits. fruit = plant ovary that has swollen. technically a cashew (in the shell) is a fruit as well.
but yeah, many things affect taste of plant foods. not jsut breeding/genetics but like mention harvest time (most commercial is picked early for shipping/shelf life), soil types and nutrition, many environmental factors etc.
here they, i think, are simply like the majority of commercial agriculture products. bred specially for market (ie shelf life and aesthetics) and also pumped up quick with lots of water and fertilizers, which add valuable KG to the scale but do little for strong flavor. kind of like “California strawberries” compared to good ol home grown small ones.
for pesticides, i personally assume it is all sprayed, as its common practice here, and wash the living $#!@ out of anything before preparing it. nice thing like avacado and other skinned fruits are the majority will be on the skin and discarded. I dont think i would put a ton of faith in even “organic” produce here as far as chemical contamination. It’s not something i spend all day worrying about, as the only way around it is starvation or growing your own supply, something many cant do. Just try and reduce things that look shitty, and by that i mean massive plump perfect blemish free plant foods are probably the worst quality on the table despite looking real nice.
Got some interesting avocados the other day. Somewhat bigger than a Haas, and dark-purplish and smooth. I thought they were small mangoes. Not as flavorful or oily as a Haas, but not bad at all. Quite light and tasty actually. And only $50 for two of them. I think they’re local. I’m on the lookout for more.
. Or it must be GMO. I just know it.
As said, different strokes for diff’rent folks.