Embarassing questions...

[Sara81]

Hi everyone,
I'm embarassed to say, but i've never actually eaten an avocado; other than when it was in dishes at restaurants or that my mother made. So my questions are the following: 1) How do you know when the avocado is ripe enough to eat? 2) Do you have to peel it to eat it? 3) When you make dishes with avocado must it be peeled?

Thanks everyone.

Sara (the naive) :o

[beauty4ashes]

Hi Sara,

Don't feel embarrassed. There are no silly questions! And it's not a bad thing that you have never eaten an avocado. Non-issue really! To answer your question though, yes you want to peel it. You can take a big heavy knife cut it in half like you would a cantalope. You will feel the pit in the middle so just cut in a circle around the pit until the avodado is cut in half. One half will have the pit the other won't. Take the heavy knife and slap it into the pit so it gets embedded in it. Then keeping the knife in the pit, move it from side to side until the pit gets loose and you pull it on out of there. I saw Martha Stewart give this tip on television one time. It's an easy way to remove the pit.
Enjoy your avocado!

[mandabear]

ha...me either. i should eat one sometime...:-P I dont know if i remember what they taste like...

[dragonfist70]

i like to open them before they are like butter so i open the avocado when it slightly dents when you push the top of it. if you want to eat it all creamy just wait till you only have to tap it to see it dent

[Sara81]

Ha ha ! No wonder it tasted awful when i first tried to eat one. I ate it completely unripe; it was as hard as a rock and honestly tasted of nothing! Thank you so much for your replies! Maybe now i'll actually be able to eat an avocado the correct way.

hehehe

[SamuelWilson]

I just got done eating some avocados. I do not like this slimcado I see at the grocery store, it has less fat and less taste, blah. I like the haas variety that comes from South America. They are the smaller ones, but they taste better to me. They will start to darken when they get ripe, also they will give to slight pressure when you squeeze them.

This is how I eat them. First, I cut them in half. If they are ripe, the halves should seperate pretty easy, if not pry them apart. I then take the half with the seed in it and hold it to my mouth, bite into the seed and then while holding the seed with my mouth, I pry the half that was attached to the seed off. Now I have an avocado cut in half with no seed. At this point I flip them over with the seed indented half facing down and cut that in half. Now I have quartered an avocado. Then, if they are ripe, you should be able to peel the skin off in single pieces. If you skin doesn't want to detach easily, then it is a little to unripe for me. You don't have a lot of prime time for an avocado, once they darken, you have to eat them within a short period of time.

They will put the weight on though if you eat to many of them, but despite what people say, one a day is not too many if you eat them everyday. However if you eat them everyday and you are eating like 5 or 6 a day then you might want to ease off of them some.

[Sara81]

Thanks so much for the info everyone :)