The travelling history lesson

Last week was spring break for Oscar and I. Seeing as how Spring "Break" really means Spring "I'm going to attempt to dig myself out of my assignment hole I've spent all semester getting myself into", we didn't really get too much of a break. We were able to sneak away for a quick wine tasting adventure up the coast and into Santa Barbara.

Now travelling with Oscar is a bit like travelling with a giant game of Trivial Pursuit, with you getting all the questions wrong. Whenever we travel in California, Oscar inundates me with random history facts-which I truly do love by the way-and when we travel in Utah, I am reminded of how little I reaped from my overpriced private education, namely my Utah history classes. What little I do know he loves to recite and it really does rekindle my love of history, which I am ashamed to admit I am terrible at.

Currently, Oscar is reading up on the California missions so this little adventure was peppered with various mission tidbits-a little side note here- missions are basically structures embodying all the horrible and demoralizing things the Spaniards did to the Natives here. However, one little fun rather nutrition related factoid Oscar dropped on me this trip was the origins of guacamole. Yep, guacamole.

The word avocado comes from the Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) word ahuacatl, which means 'testicle', an obvious reference to the shape of the avocado. Turns out women were pissed at their men even back in the olden days and they would smash the ahuacatls in effigy and there you have guacamole!Thank goodness for domestic disputes. Gustavo Arellano (a great Chicano author and writer of the "Ask a Mexican" column) spoke about this traditon recently and so Oscar relayed the story to me, and I in turn will share it with you. Enjoy with chips!