Avocado toast has no single inventor, but no place is more bound up with its rise than California. In the early 2010s it became shorthand for the California breakfast — fresh, green, and unfussy — and the state’s claim runs deeper than fashion: the Hass avocado, the variety on nearly every piece of avocado toast in America, was born here.
The Hass avocado traces to a single seedling grown by Rudolph Hass, a mail carrier in La Habra Heights, California, who patented the tree in 1935. California still grows the large majority of the avocados raised in the United States, almost all of them Hass. By the mid-2010s, Los Angeles cafes had turned smashed avocado on grilled bread into a signature, and the dish became a symbol of the city’s cooking.
To make it at home, toast two thick slices of good sourdough. Mash a ripe Hass avocado with a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of flaky salt, spread it thick on the toast, and season with Aleppo pepper. Finish each slice with a fried egg.
Sources and notes: The Hass avocado was patented by Rudolph Hass of La Habra Heights, California, in 1935, and California grows most of the avocados raised in the United States. (Wikipedia, Hass avocado; California Avocado Commission.)
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