Thursday, April 12, 2007

Panzas Verdes

My brother-in-law tried to convince me last week that all the world's avocados descend from an original seed grown in Antigua Guatemala.

I made a mental note to look into this on my return and it turns out that he is not entirely misinformed. There were actually three unique ancestral varieties, one from Antigua Guatemala, one from Mexico and another from the Windies.

The Spanish word for avocado, aguacate, derives from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word ahuacatl, meaning testicle.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Guy, all this information is in my archives; just look it up under panzas verdes and Popenoe, avocado, aguacate.

Here is my trivia on my entry about the avocado lady.

Trivia 1: The word avocado comes from the the Spanish word aguacate which in turn comes from the Mexican Nahuatl language word ahuacacuauhitl, which means testicle tree. Avocado in Maya is on and palta en Quechua. Source: UC Davis.