When: July 31
National Avocado Day on July 31 celebrates the fruit that sparked a culinary revolution — going from niche health food in the 1990s to the defining ingredient of millennial cuisine.
Avocados were considered too boring for American tables until California grew them, a mail carrier patented one, and marketing made them unavoidable.
Avocados have been cultivated in Mexico and Central America for at least 5,000 years. The Aztec word "ahuacatl" — which became "avocado" through layers of Spanish approximation — refers to the way the fruits hang in pairs from branches. Early American importers in the 20th century found the etymology too suggestive for marketing purposes and tried calling them "alligator pears" instead, pitching them as a savory vegetable rather than a fruit. The alligator pear campaign did not succeed. Avocados remained a niche California product for most of the century. The Hass variety — dark, pebbly-skinned, buttery — was discovered as a chance seedling in the backyard of Rudolph Hass, a mail carrier in La Habra Heights, California, in the late 1920s. He couldn't identify the variety, tried to graft better-known cultivars onto the tree, and when those failed, let the seedling grow. It fruited. The flavor was remarkable. He patented it in 1935 — the first avocado variety to receive a U.S. plant...