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I know what this looks like. Someone•jumping on the bandwagon, hitching a ride to the millennial zeitgeist-defining . But more on that later. For me, avocado toast was my childhood go-to, a simple meal my brother and I learned from my dad, who learned it from his, who learned it from his. It is emblematic of the simplicity of childhood, but also my father's love of the just enough - nothing unnecessary or superfluous, just the essentials. In this case. one avocado, cut into slices, arranged on two pieces of buttered toast, then sprinkled with salt. My dad perfonned this task with his quiet solicitude, his focused attention, his careful moti ons. This he got from my grandpa, too, a way of making small, routine activities seem like the most important thing in the world. ,

The first step. after putting your bread in the toaster (the seedy kind), is to halve the avocado with a sharp knife, cutting a straight line through the length of the fruit, knife still, avocado rotating in your palm. returning to the point of first break. My dad would then twist with two hands to separate one half from the other, then deftly axe the pit with the blade of the knife. You scoop the. fruit from the skin with a soup spoon and place them flatly on a cutting board, rounded tops up. My favorite part to watch, now: my dad would methodically cut thin slices from the first half, using the side of the knife to carefully lay each one on the buttered toast like shingles on a rooftop. He moves from left to right, slice, settle, slice, settle, slice, settle. Each slice he made feel special. Make two rows but fill gaps on the top or bottom as needed. Repeat with the other half and second slice of bread, then sprinkle black pepper and sea salt and watch the latter meh on the soft green beds. • 11111 II II Ill 11 l\ If' I I I U I l( HI I I l U U ' • •- H lll • 1 I &1' '•' -- ._, ~ ;,...L ______.._. 7 -: . -. Poem by Frank 0 ' Hara ( 1926-66) .. . • Light clarity avocado salad in the morning : after all the terrible things I do how amazing it is : to find forgiveness and love, not even forgiveness Yes, O'Hara mentions , but this poem is also atsout • since what is done is done and forgiveness isn't love love - how love can infuse rightness and meaning into the ~ and love is love nothing can ever go wrong : wrong and meaningless. And my dad's avocado toast (in all its 1 ~· : though things can get irritating boring and dispensable ; plainness) is an extension of love, making right and giving meaning in small ways. ; (in the imagination) but not really for love... .. :,,, ,,~-,:un• uu 111tH1iu, ,,, u,,,,u,au, ,uu•'"''

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Martin Manalansan explores food as a sensory and emotional ,trigger and as a linchpin of conjured homecomings. Food can •transport someone across space and time, regardless of an eater's desire to figuratively return home or not. It becomes embedded in our experiential fabric, threaded through and between patches of memory. I see my dad reading at the table, -.••'' IIIII • IIUUI lllllll 11(1111 IC': a plate of two open face toasts before him. - Poem by me (2000-present) -. - For me, avocado toast means contentedness and security. . a countertop memory: - Through the turbulence of childhood and adolescence, I found - three generations sharing - great comfort and continuity in the dish, It was predictable, one initial, Jon J to Chad J; - constant, toasty and buttery. With the few ingredients, you his J to Jacob, Nicholas, -- really know what you're gonna get. And that was entirely o~y. - ~ and with our J, a likeness - Things could get scary and unpredictable, but there was always : and a liking: .- avocado toast. r : for minutia and avocado toast, - : spread of butter, pools of salt. - .... -... -... -- r ,., I UI • Hut U I Cl••''-' CI I lll' '".:' J»- ,_ a r.e~ ,_ r.-r.- l'he ::ulery Bad Rawd Millennial •1nvention• of Avocado Toast cu (IIW,.P4llil.il

The pennutations of context and connation stapled to food arc .. l ., ALI U constantly being n:defmed, reconstructed, reordered. For avocado toast, this happened in a public rocket to fame whereby the dish has been catapulted to millennial poster food.

This has also meant that people's gripes with millennials and gen z or whatever names we've decided on have been mashed into the creamy spread of the fatty superfood. In other words, it has become a sort of gastronomic scapegoat, a symbol of frivolous spending. l. "When I w,ps trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado tor $19 and four coffees at $4 .each," says billionaire property developer Tim Gurner. Is avocado toast really to blame? Here's a quick pop hit detour. \ A case study, if you will.

• • _ _-.s-. .~ .....-,. Emily Zeck - Avocado Toast (excerpted)

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4 \ ls thisi in the words of Extremely Low Quality Content, the millennial anthem? If anything, it is an unintentional satire of a particular brand of consumerism. The songwriter accidentally reveals the privilege and material expenses inherent in \ "influencer" trendiness (e.g., property access and free time to · lounge on the beach, subscriptions, the titular toast itself) while simultaneously slamming those with a "high-rise high life." Catherine deOliveira is right to point out the.irony. n II l _ _ ...... __!...: ,. ~~~ .. Emily Zeck - Avocado ·Toast (ei cerpted) , I don't wanna wait in line To spend $20 bucks just to have a good time I don't wanna fake it no more I'd rather be in sweats on my living room floor Take my ~akeup off Hang up my dress and Kick off my heels And turn On Netflix I don't care Call me parks and reckless No, I don't care

You can keep your high-rise high life I'd rather have the coconut lime life I'd rather have the sand get my mind right Give me a tan and a good vibe

It's my life I'm just fme Eatin' avocado toast on the west coast Sunshine, I don't mind Salt in my hair and the sand in my toes

I don't wanna waste my time Flexing for people I don't even like I don't wanna chase the lie Everyone~s living and I don't know why Material things You're so obsessed with Break your bank I'll break out the Netflix (And I cannot blame millennials for their taste. There's and something about the balance of fat and salt, crunchy creamy, toasted and cool. It's just yummy.)

toast. I It's hard not to be fascinated ~y the story of avocado at my dining table and grandparents' counter, status, and its grew up eating it Avocado toast became capital for that image when I explained I'd be bars but my friends did not see fame and trendiness saw it popping up in pricey toast toast. Instead, they laughed, price of the making a zine about avocado around the country. And I assume that the rising of the dish with meme-worthy Food," drawing on every association dish only reinforced its allure. In his article "Trash influencers, health fads, and sterile white people will millennials, oblivious Chris Offutt forecasted that "one day wealthy become about so much more. rich hipster cafes. Avocado toast has pay thirty-five dollars for a tiny portion of carp with a ,.. ,- sauce-and congratulate themselves for doing so." There to these toast appears to be a similar congratulatory nature avocado toast to my spaces I w~uld bt remiss to i~olate pre-Instagram creations, which must be assembled and purchased in aguacate, was a it as family. Avocado, commg from the Spanish can feel exclusive and insular (even still, Zeck flaunts central that staple for my German great grandpa but originated in of carefree, clean living). Continuing, Offutt writes across a symbol Me~ico. Since its origination, the avocado has spread white elite take an interest in the food poor that ''when the , growing in the Americas, Caribbean, Oceania, goes up." We've certainly seen such price the globe people eat, the price Africa, an,d parts of Asia. inflation here. ., , ' .· That being said, Mr. Gumer's statement is highly reductive not and he also seems like an ass. Avocado toast alone is the price enough to account for millennial spending habits, and the cost of artisanal toasts are influenced by many factors like , oflabor (which is influenced by the regional cost of living permits, insurance mandates, etc.), rent, supplies, equipment, · and advertising, accounting, maintenance, etc., etc. To~y, large-scale avocado orchards exact great resource tolls. These standardized economies of scale are ~nviro_nmen~I gy mput-~t~ns1ve, from water, fertilizer, and pruning technolo eighteen to pesticides a~d sun burn protection. It takes roughly . That water THIS IS gallons of applied water to grow a single avocado 41TilAAU¥ burden_can si~ficantly exacerbate droughts in avocado­ .,,,,,, lfST producmg regions. IN 1"•WN 1 Swt"~ •••••••• / •••••••••••••••••• •••••••••• • • • • •• • ~ ' ' ' ' J rM ~ tVYV'I\ ~ IYVVl I\ fYW'YH NJ

UP NE'XT: With all this in mind, avocado toast still means a lot to me. It means a lot because it feels like home and being surrounded by WHf'R.f l>ID M~ love and &REAT GRANO PA , ,M.~ · though things can get irritating boring and dispensable SR.AJtJDP~ :rotJ:.s r:>Al> 11 .J"oNAH~ (in the imagination) but not really for love. {)\CK u.f THE HABIT -tJ! c/lTING AVOCAPO ,o)IST?

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UP NE'XT : With all this in mind, a, tSt still means I lot to me. It WH('R.( l>l l> /\4~ means a lot because it f, omc and being surrounded by &REAT GR If WOP~ a M~ love and ,R.A/JDPA IotJ~S e>Al>, .J"oNAH ~ though things ca sting boring and dispensable f\eK TJ-IE (in the imagination) but for love. \.A.' HA8 I T ~ EATING AvocAPO ,o~ST?

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Nick Heimbigner 04 March 2020 ,, Zine Write-up my From the moment this project was introduced, I could not shake the idea of compiling two pieces memories of avocado toast. I was a little wary at first given the simplicity of the dish, It was of bread and one avocado. But that very simplicity is partly what made the dish so special. simple in the way that my dad liked things to be, that is, simple as a strength, not a detriment to its There are few dishes I ate as consistently and frequently as avocado toast, which added of special role in my life. As I mention in the zine, my dad's avocado toast was a source consistency and stability amidst the chaos ofadolescence. And simply by remembering the taste of avocado toast in my mind, I feel partially home. This transported back to my grandpa's kitchen island or my dining table in my childhood i.e., the figurative transportation reflects Martin Manalansan's idea of a conjured homecoming, home, power of food to trigger the matrix of emotions and sensations associated with one's through especially when home is spatially distant. I also touched on the classification of food Chris Offutt, who explored the class associations of certain food items in his essay, "Trash for the dish Food". In the past decade, avocado toast has become entangled with status and class, a has been widely championed by health-conscious, Instagramming millennials, becoming food can rise double-digit priced artisanal creation. Offutt describes how the perceived value of a when the "white elite take an interest," and avocado toast is an excellent example. The in class, the production of avocados is also notable for its resource usage. As we have discussed a wide simplification and standardization of industrial economies of scale have necessitated creates arsenal of inputs, and growing food on the market's timeline instead of nature's timeline an avocado major resource and ecological burdens. The sheer volume of water necessary to grow . is startling when juxtaposed against drought-stricken regions neighboring avocado orchards for I Iinocut relief printed several of the images in my zine, which was an excellent time and dad some meditation on the subject matter. In particular, the opening portrait of my grandpa This was gave me several hours to stare at their faces and think about their impact on my life. hear about really special! My grandpa, who still eats avocado toast to this day, was delighted to the project and recount some stories from his family's farm in rural Washington. Works Cited Avocado, hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/avocado_ars.html. Fort, Ellen. "The . t " Eater SF Eater Cost of Avocado Toast, Explamed by a Restaura eur. ' SF, 23 May 2017, sf.eater.corn/2017 /5/23/ 15677684/avocado-toast-prices-menu-coSts-san- francisco. Judkis, Maura. "Perspective I Don't Mess with Millennials' Avocado Toast: The Internet Fires Back at a Millionaire." , WP Company, 15 May 2017, www .washingtonpost.corn/news/food/wp/2017 /05/ 15/dont-mess-with-millennials­ avocado-toast-the-intemet-fires-back-at-a-millionaire/. Manalansan, Martin F. "Beyond authenticity: Rerouting the Filipino culinary diaspora." Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader. New York University Press, 2013. 288-300. Offutt, Chris. "Trash food." The Bohemian South: Creating Countercultures, from Poe to Punk (2017): 128. O'Hara, Frank. "Poem." Frank O 'Hara: Selected Poems, Carcanet Press. "Why Avocados Are So Expensive I So Expensive." YouTube, uploaded by Business Insider, 02 November 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZwbhgS9fuc&t=325s. Zeck, Emily. "Avocado Toast." YouTube, uploaded by PRMD Music, 27 July 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BARA0svNS4.

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