Given the Name:
The avocado has been given many names by many people. The Spanish "abogado", the French "avocat", each meaning "lawyer" and the English "avocado" are all apparently attempts to phonetically reproduce the Aztec name, "ahuacatl". In Chile, Peru and Ecuador it is "palta", the name given the fruit by the Incas. The Mayans of Guatemala called it "on", and the Brazilian Indians call one species "omtchon". When and why "Alligator Pear" was applied is not known, however, it can be reasoned that the skin texture of some varieties was equated with that of the alligator and early writers variously described the avocado as "the fruite like to great peares" or "pears which are unlike pears".
Other names reflecting the smooth, butterlike texture of the flesh are "custard apple" (West Africa), butter pear, vegetable butter, midshipman's marrow or butter, and subaltern's butter. In Jamaica it is sometimes called a shell pear, or as a tribute to those who introduced it to the West Indies, Spanish pear. The only known musical reference to the fruit appeared in the late 1930's when jazz pianist Slim Gailliard wrote and popularized his "Avocado Seed Soup symphony."
History of the Avocado:
Proof of the existence of avocados in Mexico, Central and South America as early as 291 B.C. can be found in the Mayan records and Aztec picture writing. The historian Ovido, in a report to Charles V. of Spain in 1526, mentioned avocados, calling them similar to butter and "very good eating and of good taste". The first English language observation was in 1672 by W. Hughes, Physician to the Crown, whose classic rhetoric pronounced the avocado to be, "one of the most rare and pleasant fruits of the island (Jamaica). It nourisheth and strenghteneth the body".
When the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez reached Mexico City in 1519, Montezuma II, Aztec emperor of the city served him avocado and word of the unusual fruit spread to Europe.
Sailors on the old windjammer ships nicknamed the avocado "Midshipman's butter" when they ran across it in tropical ports.
The young George Washington, visiting the Barbados Islands in 1751 wrote, "agovago (sic) pears" were abundant and popular there. Another early American admirer was the journalist Richard Harding Davis who discovered the fruit in Venezuela in the 1890's. Davis gave some to his New York restaurateur friend Charles Delmonico who also found them delicious and ordering a regular supply, included them on his most expensive menus.
The first recorded planting of avocados in California was by Henry Dalton in 1848 near what is now Azusa. The introduction of the avocado into California was also mentioned in an 1856 report by the Visiting Committee of the California State Agricultural Society. According to this report, an avocado tree was imported from Nicaragua along with other fruit plants by Dr. Thomas J. White who planted them near Los Angeles. No specific dates are mentioned.
Not until 1871, however, was the avocado definitely established through the introduction of three trees by Judge R.B. Ord of Santa Barbara. Two of these trees bore fruit for many years and served to create interest in further plantings. During the years that followed, many trees were imported from Mexico and other Central American countries while still other trees were started from seeds brought into California by travelers.
The industry got started in earnest in 1911 when the 21-year-old Spanish speaking American, Carl Schmidt, journeyed to Mexico City, Puebla and Atlixco. Schmidt was employed by the West India Nurseries in Altadena, California, and was assigned the task of combing the Mexican market place for avocados of outstanding quality and locating the trees from which they came. When he succeeded, he would cut budwood from the trees and ship it by Wells Fargo to Altadena. The buds were numbered on receipt. Many had refused to adapt themselves to the soil and climate of California, but number 15, which Schmidt had cut from a tree in the garden of Alejandro le Blanc, flourished. When it lived through the great freeze of 1913, its strength was officially recognized and its new name was the Spanish word for strong, "fuerte". The Fuertre tree which Schmidt found in Atlixco created California's avocado industry and still remains its bulwark.
Excerpted from Rowland, Wm. A. 1970 January. Fruit & Vegetable Facts & Pointers: Avocados. United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association/ 777 14th Street, N.W./ Washington, D.C. 2005