Avocados and sour cream
by Felipe Zapata
Like your first kiss, one tends to remember other breakthroughs. Like sour cream and avocado.
As a child, I ate neither of these things.
Where I came up, sour was a stand-back adjective, and avocados were something in storybooks.
I first encountered sour cream at age 19 in a restaurant on the edge of Merced, California. Eating with me that evening was Staff Sergeant John Carnes.
I was in the Air Force.
Carnes was an alcoholic who looked like Jack Kerouac. He was about 40, my boss though he didn’t really care about that. He only cared about booze and women. He was a womanizer.
But he was nearly sober that night when I ordered baked potato. The waitress asked, You want sour cream with that? Yuck, I thought.
It’s great, said the sergeant, so I ordered it, and I’ve loved sour cream on baked potatoes ever since. It’s been years, however, since I’ve seen sour cream because it’s nearly impossible to locate on the mountaintop where I live.
People hereabouts recommend something similar, but I don’t want similar. I want real sour cream, and I cannot get it.
Sometimes in life you have to live without things you love.
Another decade passed before I ate my first avocado, so I was about 30. I may have eaten an avocado in my 20s, but I don’t think so. The first that I recall was eaten in Puerto Rico.
You pretty much have to see palm trees to find a good avocado.
If you hear Spanish, all the better. That means you’re in an emotional world, and eating an avocado is an emotional experience. It’s very close to the texture of other stuff you don’t speak about in polite company.
I bought that first avocado from a brown-skinned boy speaking Spanish and carrying avocados in a cardboard box in the parking lot of a supermarket. He was a young entrepreneur, and there were palm trees too.
Sour cream has left my life, but I eat avocado every day, which makes me strong. I live in an emotional world. I hear Spanish, and I see palm fronds.
paradise….even without sour cream…
Charles: If I had to pick between the two, I would have picked avocado. So I lucked out.
Sour cream! Oddly enough, Hondurans are infatuated with the stuff. They eat sour cream on eggs, on top of beans and rice, with pancakes, etc. Definitely with sweet, fried plantanos! They do not eat sour cream on potatoes. I need to do a post about it. They call it “mantequilla” which of course is known as butter. Therefore American butter used to be hard to find. However, times are a’changing. I can find both everywhere now.
BTW, my mom was infatuated with avocados. We ate them until our ears turned green. She saved the pits and grew her own. I still only occasionally eat them as I had my fill before the tender age of 16.
Laurie: Clearly, I moved to the wrong country because I imagine you have lots of avocados too. But I question whether what you and your new paisanos call sour cream would pass my test.
I need to research and write a post. We have at least 3 types of local cream that are local as well as the traditional imported US sour cream. One is barely sour, and a bit sweet. One is heavier, and almost all cream. Another is just like sour cream. and…. more and more at local dairy outlets.
Laurie: You have inspired me. Fact is that it’s been a couple of years since I’ve actually hunted sour cream in supermarkets here. I must do so. If it’s arrived in the backwater of Honduras, how not here? Probably sitting there on the shelf before my nose as I walk down the aisle, ignoring it.
Of course, then I would be faced with the challenge of finding a real Idaho potato.
Felipe, you can make your own sour cream. Check these methods out:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Relish/How-To-Make-Sour-Cream-And-Cream-Cheese-Recipes.aspx
http://www.untrainedhousewife.com/how-to-make-homemade-sour-cream-from-raw-milk
http://www.granvilleonline.ca/gr/blogs/diy/2010/06/02/make-homemade-sour-cream
Joanne: The first recipe mysteriously lists sour cream as one of the ingredients needed to make the, well, sour cream. It gives buttermilk as an alternative. I’ve never seen buttermilk in a store here where I live. The other ingredient required is heavy cream. I’ve never seen heavy cream in a store here either.
The second recipe requires raw milk, which is something very available here. The problem though is there’s work involved, plus it says it likely won’t taste like commercial sour cream. I want commercial sour cream, and I’m averse to work.
The third recipe again requires buttermilk. Ain’t got no buttermilk.
Many recipes from above the border call for ingredients not easily found in my part of the world.
But I thank you for the homework you did for me.
I am with you on the sour cream infatuation. But, I thought we signed a pact to drop the “sour” in favor of “cultured.” Cultured cream sounds far more — well, cultured. Unfortunately, the alias makes the substance no more ubiquitous.
As for avocados, even with cultured cream, I would save them for you.
Steve: As with so many things these years, our pact had slipped my mind.
Sour cream is on my list of the most perfect foods. My husband introduced me to the world of avocados, guacamole and salsa, good stuff.
Jackie: Your husband has good taste. In women too, I bet.
Sr…give this quick fix a recipe for sour cream…buy a small container of what they call crema down here…stir in 2 tbsps. of lemon or lime juice…mix well…leave in refrigerator at least 6 to 8 hours…let me know if it works for you! Saludos.
Charles: On the face of it, I can’t see how that would make sour cream as I know it, but I could be wrong. It happens. But there is another element to this entire hubbub, and that is that I generally avoid such stuff these days. I weigh what I did at age 21, and I want to keep it that way. If you start making exceptions here, exceptions there, about what you dine on, pretty soon it all goes down the chute, so to speak.
But thanks.
The other ingredient required is heavy cream. I’ve never seen heavy cream in a store here either.
“Crema para batir.” That’s the stuff.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
Ah, Señor Cuevas, I’ve been waiting for you to chime in. I can talk about the downfall of American civilization or murderous teenage hussies till the cows come home, and you keep your own counsel. However, when food is mentioned, you’re usually first in line. You must have been occupied elsewhere. I understand.
So that’s heavy cream, eh? Didn’t know that. And light cream? Ready-made sour cream?
Yes, crema para batir is heavy cream. And one of those recipes calls for vinegar as the souring agent. But the absence of a decent potato in Mexico makes it all moot.
Oh well, the excellent ataulfo mangoes make up for the lousy potatoes.
steve didn’t even eat avocados until he married me-now we have them all the time as they are plentiful in japan-i think they come from the philippines. i hadn’t thought about sour cream since we’ve been here so guess it’s not something i miss. i do miss real bacon though.
you are in such great shape-i am far from what i weighed at 21 although i was a bit on the thin side. my mom always tried to fatten me up-she always thought i was anemic or maybe she wanted me to find a cuban man-they like meat on their women. nah, my mom just wanted to make sure i was healthy.
have a great weekend (yes, i know you always do
teresa en nagoya
Teresa: No bacon? How strange. I loooove bacon, but I don’t eat it due to the fat content. Gotta maintain my boyish figure.
I suspect that you might find sour cream in a Superama. Or Costco (though you’d likely have to buy a gallon at a time there). And I’d also vote those places the most likely to have a potato worthy of said topping.
Saludos,
Kim G
Boston, MA
Where we can get avocados, but they are a pale imitation of those found south of the border. And WAY more expensive too.
Kim: In almost 12 years here, I have seen a real Idaho ‘tater once, just once. While I admit I do not check out the refrigerated sections of supermarkets very often, I do scan the produce with regularity.
By the way, you should move down here. For the avocados if nothing else.
There is buttermilk in Mexico – can’t remember the word, but I’ll find it and send it to you. I just brought back a bag of russet potatoes this week. I’m firmly ensconced in San Miguel but if someone appeared here and asked for one or two potatoes, I more then likely would part with a couple………
I doubt that a dollop of sour cream would affect your fine figure, Senor.
Babs: I’ve seen things in that supermarket on the edge of your town, not the Mega which I have never entered, but the other one, that I have never spotted in my neck of the woods. The Gringo presence is like a magnet there for high living. Lucky for you.
Thanks for the tater offer, but I imagine they will be sprouting long before we get over in your direction again.