The simplest of things

Half an hour’s extra sleep in the morning before work is one example, the bed warm from your own body heat, the sun not completely out as yet so the bedroom itself is still cool. Putting your hand into the pocket of an old pair of jeans and finding money is another, especially if it’s the week before pay day and every last dollar has been carefully budgeted. The more unexpected and uncomplicated the event, the greater and sweeter is its enjoyment.

Wandering around the nearest branch of Tesco’s — the UK supermarket giant that sells almost everything from aioli to zucchini — I came upon an unexpected surprise in the produce section. Despite the plethora of choices on the regular shelves, the selection of fruits and vegetables is curiously limited. It is so limited in fact, that usually, I tend to bypass it. A surprise, however, awaited me. On the second shelf from the top, nestled in a green plastic tray, were little containers of avocadoes.

My hand itches to write zabocca, but that, I think, is a word that I will reserve for authentic West Indian avocadoes. You know the kind, the skin, the highly polished green of pine needles, thin and smooth and peels right off the flesh so that there is no wastage. The seed is big with the brown outer layer wrapped loosely around it.

The fruit itself — there is nothing like it. It so willingly sacrifices itself to the satisfaction of your palate; almost any knife will slice through it. The combination of the heavy weight of the fruit in one’s hand (the left hand if one is right handed) the other hand cutting out a generous portion of butter yellow with its thin green outer layer. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get a sample of one of the less common varieties and the flesh is not buttery but somewhat nutty.

These Tesco avocadoes were nothing like that. They were the tiniest things, fitting easily in the palm of my hand with skin as rough and bumpy as a toad’s. But in my eyes there were as pure gold. Well, maybe not gold, that long held standard of what was precious and rare now as common as the cold, but I guess you know what I mean.

They were four for a pound, these tiny things, but I thought they were a bargain. Over the next few days I had a feast.

The skin was hard to peel off and the flesh clung desperately so that one had to resort to taking a spoon to it. The seed had a mind of its own, refusing to come out without a fight.

The label said they were South African in origin and I guess having grown in a country that has experienced so much has caused the fruit to be tough.

One avocado was equivalent to a generous slice of our zaboccas back home, but economy winning out over avarice I decided to prolong the enjoyment by limiting myself to half.

But don’t let my negative descriptions fool you. As I said, over the next few days I had a feast. The first meal was red beans, rice, potato salad and avocado. The red beans were from the tin and not the kind one has to soak overnight in water and then cook seemingly forever but that did not matter. In my mind it was beyond sweet. It was a simple meal, simple to prepare and without pretension but it was as close to Trinidadian meal as I’d had thus far.

Not quite a Sunday lunch — that would require a macaroni pie — but certainly an unforeseen middle of the week meal that you come home to expecting leftovers and notice the pot bubbling on the stove. When you lift the lid there are the beans dancing frenziedly. One the countertop the rice is white and fluffy in the colander and the potato salad is sitting demurely in its plastic container in the fridge, making the stomach growl in anticipation.

I got my money’s worth out of those avocadoes. They spruced up a number of meals, including a humdrum fish and chips and on the last morning the piece de r?sistance — bread and avocado with a little bit of salt sprinkled over the top. And when I’ve finished this column and emailed it I’m off to the market where I’m certain I saw some avocadoes on sale when I was passing yesterday and where as we say, I will make my name.

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