GOING COMMERCIAL

FUERTE AVOCADO

GROWER

Seasons/Availability
December through Mid-March

Current Facts
This former market standard was displaced by the Hass avocado because of its thicker skin and ability to handle being shipped to distant marketplaces. The fuerte tends to bear fruit in alternate years.

Description/Taste
The fuerte avocado was once the gold standard cultivar of avocados in California. It is considered a medium to large fruit that can weigh up to one pound. Its shape is elongated and pear-like. Its smooth thin skin is easy peeling and it has a deep grass color with some dark speckling. Its flesh is thick, yellow and marginally oily. It has a rich, creamy flavor with notes of hazelnuts and a clean, grassy finish.

Geography/History
The tale of the Fuerte avocado starts in the year 1911 in Puebla, Mexico, 80 miles east of Mexico City. On behalf of the West Indian Nursery in Altadena, California, American, Carl Schmidt, 21 at the time, traveled to Mexico City and Puebla in search of quality avocados, specifically avocado trees. He cut budwood from the best trees, numbered them and shipped them back to Altadena. Most of the buds refused adaptation to the soil and climate, but number 15 flourished. It survived the great freeze of 1913 and hence it was given its name, Fuerte, Spanish for “strong”. That single tree is responsible for spawning California’s avocado industry.

So while the general population is eating Chilean Hass Avocados because that is the commercial norm this time of year and throughout, perhaps you might want to make the switch the true gold standard, Fuerte.   It is local, in season and its flavor is superiorly incomparable.

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