A Thousand Avocados

As we mentioned in the “Ingredients” section of the book, the Alanya avocado holds a special place at 7 Mehmet Restaurant. Mehmet shares one of his favorite stories with delight:

“One day, my father went to his friend Ahmet Amca’s (Ahmet Uluç) house. He tasted an avocado from his garden, and he loved its flavor, texture, and aroma. He liked it so much that he became obsessed with it. He set out to find the producer. When that didn’t work, he tried to have it cultivated himself. Eventually, the avocado appeared exclusively on 7 Mehmet Restaurant’s menu, gracing the plates.

Meanwhile, we were also in contact with our farmer friend Cin Ali in Gazipaşa. Since Gazipaşa has a very suitable climate for tropical fruit cultivation, my father started giving Ali Abıme the avocado seeds that were left over from the kitchen each day, so that they could sprout and grow into trees. Over time, we learned that almost all of the avocados in Gazipaşa, and half of the Alanya avocados, came from the trees grown from seeds sent by 7 Mehmet Restaurant.

I haven’t even told the main avocado story yet. One day, my father bought 1,000 avocados at 1 lira each. That same evening, a man came and offered to pay 1 lira for each seed. My father, with his commercial sense, immediately agreed, but until then he had never handled so many avocados at once. So they started working in the kitchen. But the next day, the avocados started to turn brown. My father, being averse to waste, like in the squid story, created countless dishes from the avocados. Soup, stew, stuffed avocado, pilaf, purée, sauté, grilled—by the end, he had made 1,001 different dishes from 1,000 avocados and used them all within three days.”