Choosing the right avocado for the season can be surprisingly tricky, even or especially at farmers markets. Good choices are available all year, but a knowledgeable buyer needs to juggle four factors: variety, season, growing area and fruit size. Every month or two the scenario changes, requiring buyers to stay nimble.
Avocados are valued chiefly for their oil content, which gives them their buttery texture and flavor. The trees bloom in the spring and the earliest varieties start to bear in late autumn. At the beginning of the season, oil levels in most varieties are low; these increase as the months go by, but this change is not very evident from the fruit's outward appearance.
In fact, to keep growers from prematurely harvesting fruit that will disappoint buyers with its low oil content, the California Avocado Commission publishes a schedule of maturity release dates, organized by variety and fruit size. This calendar, which changes somewhat each year depending on the maturity of the crop, applies to all growers, at farmers markets as well as commercial shippers.
Each variety matures at a different time: The largest fruits of Bacon reached legal status on Oct. 21 this year; Fuerte on Oct. 27; Zutano on Nov. 16; and Hass on Nov. 28. But these are minimum requirements, and the fruit of any individual variety does not become optimally rich and buttery until weeks or months after its official release.
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