I don't know if y'all have noticed, but avocado prices are through the damn roof right now. Bad weather in California depressed the US crop, but that was only ever 15% of total USA consumption. It's said the trade issues with Mexico may have spiked prices for awhile, but apparently now the main problem is just that it's the seasonal low point for Mexican production, so they can't easily fill the California avocado gap.
My sister is building a greenhouse for tropical trees, just so she can grow avocados and mandarin oranges. I'm...not. But I like my guacamole, and I can't/won't pay the current avocado prices.
So you can imagine my intense interest when I stumbled over this article in a Los Angeles online foodie publication: Fake Guacamole is Here. The Secret That Taquerias Don't Want You To Know About, And How To Spot it. It turns out that the avocados are replaced with Mexican squash (perhaps not too dissimilar from the tatume squash I already know I can grow?) and vegetable oil. You could consider the faux guac a sort of Mexican baba ganoush I guess. But the LA foodies who looked into it concluded that it really is good enough to explain how taquerias can get away with passing it off like it was the real thing. To me, this makes it permaculture-relevant. The first thing I try to do when I find myself eating crops that are shipped thousands of miles to my table is figure out whether I could grow it. The second thing I do, when the answer turns out to be "no" because the crop is relentlessly tropical, is to figure out if there's some substitute that I could grow that would be just as satisfying. Making a passable guacamole with squash and tomatillos and vegetable oil? This is relevant to my interests!
OK, let's dip into this fascinating article:
If you have noticed the guacamole at a taco spot looking and tasting a little more watery than your standard runny, but still rich taqueria guacamole, it’s because it probably never had any avocado in it, to begin with.
There is a fake guacamole that has very quietly sauced our tacos for who knows how long now. It is a confusingly neon-green, avocado-less crime against taco humanity that no taquero will ever proudly admit to committing.
A false guacamole made from…blended calabacitas (Mexican squash), without a single buttery slice of ripe avocado in sight.
Yes! This is promising; my tatume squashes are also known as calabacitas. But so is every other small summery squash, I think; we've still got some ambiguity about what kind of squash to use for this. Back to the article:
Chilango, the magazine that covers all things Mexico City, was the first whistleblower that exposed the breach of avocado security last week. In the article, they reveal that a Twitter user named @Karligrafia was the first to tweet about the scam and become viral for it. But even before this tweet, a popular Youtuber named Alejandra de Nava known for recreating popular Mexican dishes for home cooks revealed the classified recipe to the world. To date, the video has almost 2 million views in less than a month.
Stop the presses! I wanna watch that video now:
Well, damn, small flaw. I don't speak Spanish. But we still can learn two useful things from Alejanda's video cooking demonstration.
First of all, this whole hoopla is about the runny blended sauce-type guacamole that I knew existed from having seen it on television, but which I have never experienced. To me, the concept of guacamole references the stiff non-runny paste type that is, basically, just mashed avocados with flavor amendments. I don't think I've ever encountered a guacamole with tomatillos in it. I am not dismayed, however; a yummy green sauce is a yummy green sauce. And I can definitely grow tomatillos!
Second and most useful, one shot in the Youtube video establishes the kind of squash we need for this. It's not Tatume (although that might work) but it's the "third zucchini" (in my sloppy mental taxonomy) after green ones and yellow crookneck -- the green speckled Mexican zucchini. I haven't tried growing it, but in a pinch they sell it at my local discount market for a f*ck of a lot less than they sell avocados for:
OK, now let's return to the LA Taco article again for more details and impressions from people who know what that kind of guacamole is supposed to taste like:
The fake guacamole recipe is nearly identical to your standard taqueria guacamole. Tomatillos, cilantro, garlic, jalapeño are still the core ingredients, instead, the imposter substitutes the green gold for the tender summer variety of Mexican squash usually sauteed in guisado form. The fake guacamole gets its creaminess thanks to the oil used to blister the jalapeño that emulsifies the rest of the ingredients.
As a service to the taco community, I took it upon myself to test this poser guacamole recipe out to see if it really was as eerily real as everyone is making it out to be: My verdict? It is.
When blended with the rest of the traditional taqueria guacamole ingredients, the slightly boiled Mexican squash emulsifies into a stunningly bright green guacamole-like salsa. However, the scariest part is that it tastes almost exactly like your standard taqueria guacamole: bright, spicy, rich, and very satisfying. For someone who has eaten over a thousand tacos this last year alone with all kinds of taqueria guacamoles for Las Crónicas research, it almost fooled me.
It took a side-by-side taste test with a traditional taqueria guacamole that I whipped up right after with plenty of avocado and the same ingredients to taste the difference.
The main difference between the poser salsa and the real thing? There is the faintest, subtly sweet flavor from the squash one that is not present in the guacamole with aguacate. But even for an experienced taco palate, when spooned over a nicely toasted tortilla, juicy meat or oozy cheese, onion, cilantro, and lime, it would be extremely hard to notice.
And now for the recipe:
1 Mexican squash, ends trimmed and quartered
6 medium tomatillos, husks removed
1 jalapeño, stem removed and sliced lengthwise
1/4 cup oil (grapeseed, vegetable, or any neutral-flavored oil)
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup cilantro
1/2 teaspoon saltIn a medium saucepan over high heat, add enough water cover the squash and tomatillos, about 2 cups. Bring water to a boil, add squash and tomatillos and cover with a lid. Cook until the tomatillos changed to a dark green color and the squash is just cooked through, about five minutes. Remove vegetables from the water using a slotted spoon and discard the water.
In a medium sauté pan over medium heat, add the oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the jalapeño and cook until it is golden and charred in some spots. Remove chiles from the pan and reserve oil.
In a blender, add squash, tomatillos, jalapeño, oil, garlic cloves, cilantro, and salt. Puree until a creamy and smooth consistency. Taste and adjust salt if needed.
Pour into a bowl and allow to cool. Serve as the real thing.
I don't have the right squash (nor any tomatillos) ready in my garden just now, although there's still time to grow both before frost if my young tomatillo plants (just now flowering) do well. This is definitely going on my list of permaculture local-appropriate-substitutions food hacks, and I look forward to being able to test it. Hopefully some other Permies will try it too! If you do, please post your impressions to this thread.
I'll close out with the cooking video the LA Taco people made, trying and taste-testing the recipe. Enjoy!
