We love it when the Fuerte avocados make their way back to the market. As I walked over to the Organic Avocado, my first sighting was of Kate squeezing lime juice onto the perfect half of the avocado with a spoon in hand ready to dip in. Nearly twenty years after seeing the 27-acre farm advertised on the internet, purchasing it and cultivating avocados on twenty of those acres, she will still eat a minimum of one avocado every day.
With everything, the farmers have faced climatically over the last few years. I ask her what her greatest challenge is and she says it’s a soil-borne fungus called ‘phytophthora’, which thrives in moisture and weakens the trees. Soil health, lots of compost and her fingers firmly crossed are the solution to it – but the irony is that avocados are one of the most environmentally intrusive fruits in terms of their production, requiring 70 litres of water per avocado. That’s three times higher than for growing apples and 18 times higher than for growing tomatoes.
Kate never gets sick of them. Rich in mostly monosaturated fats, they’re also a great source of several B vitamins and Vitamin K. But it’s that buttery lushness – that ‘mouth-feel’ lusciousness – that makes them so popular, perennially, especially among vegetarians and vegans, who create gorgeous desserts from the flesh, chocolate mousse being a common one. Kate herself makes a Lime Pie and passes me a wedge to try. I could be eating cheesecake: creamy, tangy, coconutty, not too sweet, on a glorious nutty base of crushed pecans and dates. A raw cake and I never would have guessed!
Written by Victoria Cosford
Recipe for Organic Raw Lime & Avocado Cake
Crust:
3 cups nuts (I mainly use locally grown pecan & macadamias).
3 dates
Blend together in food processor until smooth. Press crust into 23 cm pie dish
Filling:
¾ cup lime juice
Zest of one lime medium
2 large avocados
¼ – ½ cup honey
¼ cup coconut cream
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup coconut oil (melted)
Blend all together until smooth. Taste, add more of anything. Pour onto prepared crust and refrigerate. Decorate with lime pieces or coconut.
