Super Food: Avocado

By Bloomsbury Publishing

Did you know Avocados contain around 20 minerals and vitamins which are essential to good health? But a medium avocado contains more calories than a Mars bar? Who cares? They're delicious and can be used in everything from salad to soup. And make a fabulous face mask!

Super Food: Avocado contains

Feature spreads - covering the history of avocados, plus health benefits, how to use avocado to dye fabric and grow your own.

Delicious food and drink recipes - from snacks, starters, mains and desserts. Enjoy a bacon and egg baked avocado with a mango, avocado and spinach smoothie for breakfast!


Health and beauty recipes - make your hands beautiful with an avocado, olive oil and lemon treatment, or brighten dull skin with an avocado exfoliant.

Food is super! There's all sorts of things you can do with fruit and veg - and not always what you'd expect. Whether it's cooking delicious dishes, looking after your teeth or making facepacks, there's all kinds of interesting, healthy uses for fruit and veg. Each book in the Super Foods series takes a look at one ingredient and shows a host of uses - both practical and delicious. The first books in the series are: Avocado, Cucumber, Pomegranate, Lemon, Beetroot and Coconut.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Apr 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781408887158

Book preview

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CONVERSION CHART

RECIPES

WHY ISN’T THE AVOCADO EXTINCT?

AVOCADO OIL

HEALTH BEAUTY

AVOCADO CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

FABRIC DYE

GROW YOUR OWN

INTRODUCTION

‘In the centre of the fruit is a seed like a peeled chestnut. And between this and the rind is the part which is eaten, which is abundant, and is a paste similar to butter and of very good taste.’

Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo Sumario de la Natural Historia de las Indias, 1526

HISTORY

Avocados originated in Mexico, where archaeological evidence shows them being gathered and eaten around 10,000 years ago. The tribes of Mesoamerica began to cultivate them from around 7,000 years ago.

The Aztec name for the avocado was ‘ahuacatl’, meaning testicle, a reference to the shape of the fruit and also to its reputed aphrodisiac qualities.

At the start of the 16th century the first Europeans arrived in the Americas and discovered a host of exotic new fruits. The first written mention of the avocado comes from explorer Martín Fernández de Enciso who, in his book Summa de Geografía (1519), described a fruit he had seen in Colombia: ‘… here are groves of many different sorts of edible fruits, among others is one which looks like an orange, and when it is ready for eating it turns yellowish; that which it contains is like butter and is of marvellous flavour, so good and pleasing to the palate that it is a marvellous thing.’ That same year the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo travelled with the famous explorer Cortez, and wrote about avocados in his Natural History of the Indies, published in 1526, noting that they were ‘excellent when eaten with cheese’. The Spanish translated ‘ahuacatl’ as ‘aguacate’, and bought this new fruit back to the Old World with them.

As the explorers pushed inland the avocado began to spread