CHUCKY’S SHADE: Can Malta Just Leave Avocados In 2018?
Did you pause F.R.I.E.N.D.S and drop your pumpkin spice latte in shock yet?
Breakups are hard at this time of year, but it’s time for Malta to let go of its toxic relationship with avocados. Sorry millennials – first they took your ‘affordable housing’ and ‘retiring before you’re dead’ and now we’re going to have to revoke your tasteless hunk of Instagram-potential too.
Before you angrily scroll down to the author segment to see which geriatric wrote this piece (that has caused such deeply personal offence), let me start by saying: I’m one of you. I can’t afford rent, I’m happy we’re killing the diamond industry and I’m a vegetarian too – but this avocado nonsense needs to be left in 2018.
Forget promises to quit smoking or get yourself to the gym more often, make your 2019 resolution the rejection of nature’s Play Dough and watch as your bank balance ironically shifts to green.
“If you won the lottery and could afford it, would you ever just grab an avocado, peel it and dig in?”
For those about to argue that avocado doesn’t taste like the clay you promised your primary-school art teacher you weren’t eating under the desk: do not confuse guac with avocado. If you won the lottery and could afford it, would you ever just grab an avocado, peel it and dig in? I thought not.
To some Latin American nations the avocado is an important staple food, and that’s great; #KeepAvocadosInMexicanCuisine, I’ll sign that petition in a heartbeat. But the incessant gentrification of a fruit is what needs to end. If the only way I can taste something is if it travels further than I’ve ever vacationed in my life, then maybe I don’t need avocado in literally everything.
“Why are my options: ‘pay more and eat today’ or ‘buy this rock that you can use to make guac when the Nationalist Party win an election’?”
With great distances travelled comes great mark-ups in price. Buying one avocado costs as much as a bag of four to six apples. Buying an avocado you can use before your unborn child gets into university could see you drowning in upwards of 10 apples (and most fruit also taste good in salad FYI).
Which brings us to a point of contention that even avocado lovers have a problem with. Why are we charged at least €1 extra for the food we purchased to be edible? Why are my options: ‘pay more and eat today’ or ‘buy this rock that you can use to make guac when the Nationalist Party win an election’.
The past few years have seen some crazy concept-restaurants open their doors, but so far none have asked you to order your steak, bring out the raw meat and then charge you extra if you want it cooked. It’s a fruit, not a date with a devout Catholic – you shouldn’t have to wait four years and throw a big party before you can toss it (in a) salad.
And if you’re new to the world of avocados, know that in splurging that extra €1 doesn’t mean you’re safe. You’d better have the onions and tomatoes ready-sliced in your car, because if you wait till you get home to cut it up, you know you’re going to pull out a lumpy, black handful of mush. Talk about guaca-mouldy.
“Talk about guaca-mouldy”
The disastrous avocado craze first took off in the United States, at least the need to use it everywhere did. So before Malta starts making hollowed out avocados into cups for cappuccino (an actual thing that exists), let’s take a quick look at the state they’re in… and realign our priorities.
Even if you can get past the fact that it tastes like soap when unseasoned, the obsession is killing the planet – and let’s not forget we’re the same generation who’s trying to stop just that.
To those shoving a toothpick through a seed and hovering it above a glass of water – thank you for your efforts. But we both know that’s never going to grow into the tree Pinterest told you it would.
Farming and growing the trees on such an industrial scale has a huge impact on the Earth, and that’s before all the hefty transportation emissions to get your likes-on-toast from Mexico to Malta.
So let’s make 2019 the year we get rid of peer pressure to be ‘obsessed’ with something – we managed with bacon back in 2010, so I have high hopes for this country. And to any new toga-wearing graduates planning on gifting me an avocado-panettone before the New Year, very funny – but don’t.