“In India, it arrived only in 1900s,” says chef Sandeep Sreedharan, founder of Mumbai-based restaurant Curry Tales and Esca Brahma, a gourmet catering service that works extensively with South Indian ingredients. The fruit possibly originated in Mexico, with discoveries of ancient pits going as far as 10,000 years ago. Unlike native Indian fruits such as carambola (starfruit), bael (wood apple), phalsa (sherbet berry) or targola (ice apple), the avocado is not indigenous to the country at all. On a recent trip to rural Maharashtra, I discovered farms lush with avocados that I scooped open and savoured underneath a lanky tree, wondering how this Mexican ingredient got here in the first place. The 20 avocado trees yield sufficient produce to meet the demands of this kitchen. “It is locally known as benne hannu, venna pandu, vennai pazham and vennapazham,” he adds. His dishes use the Coorg variety that grows in their backyard farm, interspersed with other produce such as organic paddy, tapioca, tomatoes, beans, chilies and spinach. Known as the butter fruit here, it is commonly found at the kitchens of many local chefs. “The avocado tree cannot tolerate freezing temperatures and can only grow in subtropical or tropical climates which means there is a year-round supply of avocado in South India,” says chef Naveen Alvares of Evolve Back Chikkana Halli Estate in Coorg.

Little is spoken about the Indian counterpart growing abundantly in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala though. Many bundle the fruit with other imported food trends, when in fact, a version of it has been growing in the southern part of India all this while. The same can be said for many Indian chefs who serve this vitamin-dense fruit in the form of bowls, bars and balls at their establishments. Choudhary uses a southern Californian variety of avocado known as Hass at her restaurant, which she procures from the regions of Peru, Mexico and New Zealand.

Venna pandu