Photo: Julia Metkalova (Shutterstock)
People will do weird stuff in pursuit of a ripe avocado, like warming them in the oven, or drowning them in dangerous water baths, but an avocado cannot be rushed. There is a way to get evenly ripe slices of avocado on your sandwich, but it involves listening to your avocado for a change, and making some modifications to your knife work.
I’m not exactly sure why splitting an avocado in half from top to tail became the way to cut into the fruit (my guess is symmetry), but if you’re only eating half or a part of it, there’s a better way. Under normal circumstances, avocados ripen from stem-end to the blossom-end. Instead of slicing from the top to the bottom and getting a hunk of fruit that’s only half-ripe, switch the angle. Cut horizontally instead of lengthwise, slicing off only the top. This part is completely ripe, and ready for your salad, sandwich, or dressing.
Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
Avocados store well with a little coating of acid, but if you’re in the market for a container:
When you feel an avocado for ripeness, you likely check the tapered-side first, even subconsciously. If I’m at the store and the bum of the avocado is still firm, but the top is promising and supple, I buy it anyway. That’s normal ripening, and I know that the top is ready for the avocado-BEC I’m going to eat for lunch, and the bottom half will be ready tomorrow or the next day.
If the fruit has suffered some bruising in one area, or you notice it’s ripe along the top and halfway down one side, you can slice it at an angle to get only the soft, usable bits. Sometimes I’ll only slice off a third of the fruit, if that’s what the avocado is instructing me to do. You may not have the luxury of being this choosy if you’re making a couple pounds of guacamole, but slicing in this manner makes sense for smaller scale preparations. Horizontal slices may not be as Instagram-able, but they’ll taste better, and taste will outrank aesthetics every time.
