Avocado with yoghurt

I’ve eaten a lot of avocados. A Lot. I bet I’ve eaten more avocados than you. Actually, I think my parents would beat me in the avocado eating stakes, but I’m sure that I’ve eaten more than all you non-avocado farming mere mortals. I’d put money on it, in fact.

Once I wore a ‘Cholesterol Free’ sticker to primary school one morning after hanging out in the shed ‘helping’ Dad pack fruit while I waited to be taken to the bus stop. I remember because Mrs Curnow picked me out of the crowd of silent year 2 babies sitting cross legged on the ground, backs as straight as possible and said “Cholesterol free? My husband could eat you then!”. I didn’t realise how dirty that was at the time.

Despite the cubic megatonne of avocados I’ve consumed over my lifetime I was firmly rooted in the hippy End-Of-Freeway style of eating them. That is savoury, simply and probably to excess. It is only very recently that sweet avocado preparations have hit my radar but I was instantly hooked. I remember my first taste well.

In 2005, Felix and I went overseas together for the first time. First stop: Hanoi. We stayed in a hotel in the old quarter, and were both smitten by the rush and bustle of the city. We frequented a Sinh To shack nearby, eating plates of mango and tasting all manner of exotic fruits. On our last day we took the plunge and shared a Sinh To Bo (Avocado smoothie). Nervously I finished all the pineapple and mango slices before taking a tentative sip. I was scared that this fruit that I knew so well and loved would be tarnished by the addition of sweet milk and ice. How wrong I was. Now I am making it my mission to eat a buckload of dessert avocados to even up the playing field.

There is a cafe near my school that serves instant noodles, coffee and fruit drinks. Since the avocado season started some colleagues have dismissed the coffee altogether and now order Bo Dum Sua Chua (chopped avocado with yoghurt). I had drunk blended avo drinks far and wide, but this is the first time I had ever seen something like this. You chop up a ripe avocado and put it in a glass. Top with yoghurt, a slug of condensed milk and ice. To eat you stir the whole thing up, mush it all together and eat it with a spoon. Snack, drink and dessert all in one. Perfect in the heat.

If you make this at home make sure that your avocados are ripe and easily mushed up. The yoghurt and condensed milk must be sweet and be generous with the ice. As much as I enjoy it, I don’t think that this snack, an avocado smoothie for the blender-less, will take off in Australia where the avo season is in winter. But if you’re in Hanoi in the summertime be sure to order Bo Dum Sua Chua, or the more commonplace yet equally delicious Sinh To Bo.