Guacamole

Dozens of styles of this classic avocado dip can be found across Mexico, from elegantly smooth versions to chunky, rustic ones like this, in which diced jalapeños and fresh cilantro add bright notes to the creamy avocado. It comes from the New York City restaurant Rosa Mexicano, which in the 1980s popularized the trend of having servers make guacamole tableside in a molcajete, or mortar.

3 tbsp. minced fresh cilantro leaves

2 tbsp. minced white onion

2 tsp. minced jalapeño

1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste

3 medium-ripe Hass avocados (about 1½ lbs.)

3 tbsp. chopped, seeded tomato Tortilla chips, for serving

Serves 4

1. In a mortar, using a pestle, pulverize 1 tbsp. cilantro, 1 tbsp. onions, jalapeño, and 1 tsp. salt to a paste. (Alternatively, on a cutting board, finely chop and scrape the ingredients into a paste and transfer to a bowl.) Set the onion mixture aside.

2. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise. Twist the halves to separate them, and remove the pits with the tip of the knife. Place an avocado half, cut side up, in your palm and make 3 or 4 evenly spaced lengthwise cuts through its flesh down to the skin, without cutting through the skin. Make 4 crosswise cuts in the same fashion.

3. Scoop the diced avocado flesh into the mortar or bowl. Repeat with the remaining avocados. Gently fold the avocado pieces into the onion paste, keeping the avocado pieces fairly intact.

4. Add the remaining cilantro and onions, along with the tomatoes. Fold together all the ingredients and season with salt. Serve immediately, directly from the mortar (or bowl), with the tortilla chips.

Love Fruit

Today, they’re almost as common as apples, but avocados have not always been an easy sell. In fact, it took more than 50 years of creative marketing to get Americans to embrace them. Growers—and, more important, the advertisers they hired—had to convince consumers that these exotic fruits were fashionable. How did they do it? Like any successful marketer, they hawked status, patriotism, and sex. Taking their lead from the success of the California orange industry, the avocado growers of California formed their own cooperative, in 1924. Initially, Calavo, as the organization came to be called, positioned the avocado as a substitute for meat. By the late 1920s and the 1930s, however, dieting was on the rise and salads were chic. So, Calavo began to attach new catchphrases to its product—“the aristocrat of salad fruits” was a favorite—in advertisements placed in magazines like The New Yorker and Vogue. In 1943, California Farmer, a trade magazine, ran an ad proclaiming that people with victory gardens (which were patriotically cultivated to provide food for civilians and troops) make their salads more delightful with avocados, which it called “grenades of glamour.” Capitalizing on a vogue for things tropical in the 1950s, Calavo also encouraged consumers to associate the avocado with exotically themed party dishes that could be served at suburban luaus. Such strategies contributed considerably to America’s love affair with guacamole. By the 1970s, Calavo’s marketers had recognized the need to respond to a rapidly liberalizing society and media culture, and began fashioning a sexy image for the once humble avocado; one ad, in McCall’s magazine, called the fruit the “love food from California.” A California Avocado Commission print and billboard campaign from 1983 said it all: it pictured the movie star Angie Dickinson beside the words “Would this body lie to you?” Avocado sales reached an all-time high.

—Jeffrey Charles