Avocados

When I was young (and perhaps when you were young too) avocados were eaten in a bowl, with a tomatoey vinaigrette dressing, and a spoon, with which you scooped the flesh out . (I once bought my mother a bowl for mother's day that was designed to eat avocados - it was green, and sort of avocado shaped. Some sort of argument arose between me and my sister about whose idea it was, or who it was from, or something like that, and mum said she never wanted a mother's day present again. Which is pretty much what happened.)

When I got older, one scooped avocados out, chopped them up and put them in a salad, or occasionally mashed them and made guacamole.

Here, you see avocados all over the place. I've never seen anyone eat one out of a bowl, or put one in a salad. You see a lot of guacamole though. (This morning, for example, I had a burrito for breakfast from a stand in the market - it had guacamole in it.) In England, I've only seen avocados in a sandwich once, and that was in a delicatessen, and people thought it was weird. (They also sold chili peanut butter and banana sandwiches, so they did have some weird stuff.) The place you see avocados the most is in sandwiches.

The standard vegetarian sandwich in the cafe at CoCE is avocado and cheese. Subway has avocado in every sandwich as an optional extra (50c). This is Subway, which competes with McDonald's. (McDonald's might do avocado too, but as they're an evil corporation, I wouldn't know. And I only went in a Subway once in England, that I remember, at Milton Keynes train station, and I think I'd have noticed if they do avocado). There's a place near us called "The Shack", which is a slightly seedy bar, which also sells burgers. Optional extra on your burger is, yes, you guessed it, avocado. When we go to Venice beach, there's a burger place we frequent (because it's completely vegan, but you'd never guess by looking), and they do a burger with avocados on. (They also have a pull up bar outside, and the more pull ups you do, the larger the discount on your burger.) S and I went for breakfast the other Saturday, on the third street promenade (so we could see if there were any celebrities about - I saw someone who looked a bit like Oliver Stone, but S didn't know who that was, and a lot of people look a bit like Oliver Stone). One of the options, at a fairly standard diner, was avocado omelette.