UberGrumpy: Avocado With Everything

In which UberGrumpy is unimpressed by innovative cuisine.

London. Rain. Work. Three reasons for a bad mood. To cheer up, I hit my favourite breakfast place. Their cosmic Eggs Benedict is worth travelling for. Or at least it was. I look at the menu. It’s gone. We now have Avocado Benedict. And Avocado Florentine, and Avocado BLT, or for those on a diet, Avocado on Toast.

So what’s Avocado Benedict? Apparently the eggs and Hollandaise are still there, but they’ve innovated by adding avocado. Innovated. I don’t want innovation, I want Eggs Benedict. But the teenage hipster smugbag waiter insists: It’s excellent, sir. Our clients love it. I order it. It comes. It’s revolting. The offending mush is hidden, lurking under the eggs. I forget it’s there, and cop a big mouthful. Yuck. It’s as bad as when I discovered that Anusol is not toothpaste, the hard way. (I had a similar surprise discovering Colgate Superminty Gel wasn’t the soothing ointment I expected, but let’s save that, for a post not about food).

How did avocados get so ubiquitous? Cash in your life savings and buy one, cut it open; it’s an inedible green rock with a harder rock in the centre. Leave it to ripen. Finally, it’s good for fifteen minutes, when it’s the colour and texture of mid-flu bogey, and then it instantly turns to black mush infested with little black flies. What’s wrong with a nice apple? Eh?

Back when ‘avocado’ mostly meant the colour of your bathroom suite, Mrs G and I used to serve them as exotic starters at our sophisticated London soirees. We would cut them in half, remove the stone, and serve them with Worcester Sauce in the resultant hole. It sure got the conversation going amongst the Crouch End glitterati. What were these strange fruits? Would they ever catch on? Where’s the toilet? Etc etc.

And now they’re everywhere. Virgin Trains recently had problems with their Railcard system, so they started accepting avocados as railcards. Seriously. What next? Gin and avocado? Avocado massage oil? See what I mean?

Anyway, back to my Avocado Benedict. Eggs Benedict should have a muffin under it. This has a brioche bun. WTF? Did I ask for a brioche bun? No! Take it away! And do I want one with my burger? No! If I want brioche, I’ll move to France and put up with the taxes and armpit hair. I’m in Blighty and I want a sesame bun. All right?

And I want it off a plate, not a shovel or a hubcap or a plank. And do I want my chips congealing in a cutesy wire basket? Do I want a cup of shaving foam instead of a coffee? Did I ask you to take my gluten out? Why’s my sugar all brown? Where’s that prawn cocktail when you want it?

Time to fight back. Nouveau cuisine, chez moi, sans avocado. A quick cupboard check reveals Twiglets, bourbon biscuits, baked beans, lard, glace cherries¹, and a can of Vimto. I reckon I could knock up a sort of savoury Black Forest Gateau. Innovation? I’ll give ‘em innovation. Who's in?

1 - Sell-by date: October 1986. They might be mildly alcoholic