All About Lula Avocados
What has a name like a celestial deity and a body like an ostrich egg?
Such a bizarre riddle could only have one answer: The Lula avocado! And while the varietal is just as one-of-a-kind as its strange description suggests, it’s truly—and literally—a sweetie on the inside.
What Are Lula Avocados
Lula avocados might have a name that harkens to the moon goddess Luna, but these fine fruits are much more down to earth than the Roman deity.
In fact, they were first born in Florida – itself a spacey state but at least accessible outside of a rocket ship. And they weren’t named for the Roman goddess at all, but rather the wife of the farmer who first grew them: a woman by the name Lula Cellon.
Her husband, George Cellon, was a long-time horticulturalist in the Miami area. And while he spent years experimenting with different avocado varietals, he first grew the far-out plant that would come to be known as the Lula in 1921.
But, taking one good looking gaze at the fruit, it’s no surprise he named it for his love.
Lula avocados are exceptionally pretty, easily eligible for any avocado-based beauty pageants. The fruits are routinely pear-shaped and sport a lovely, smooth green skin. On the inside, their nut is not so big, leaving plenty of yellow-green flesh to enjoy.
And despite their tropical upbringing, these avocados are tougher than they appear.
The Lula is particularly known for its hardiness and even love of the cold—something most sun-worshipping avocados simply don’t share. In fact, you can thank the Lula for the presence of any fresh avocados in the Northern Hemisphere winter months.
The fruits of this tree don’t fully ripen until between October and December, making the Lula one of the last avocado varietals of the season. Yet, like many other late bloomers, the Lula makes that wait worthwhile.
What Do Lula Avocados Taste Like
The fruits don’t just look good. They taste good—or even better.
Lula avocados are a Type A avocado, which technically refers back to the funny way the fruits propagate. (Long story short, Type As live up to the fastidiousness of their human personality counterparts, with flowers that open first thing in the morning.)
In practice, however, that background leads to what many people believe to be a far superior fruit.
Type A avocados are famous for their higher oil content, which leads to more generous, creamy and delicious flesh. And the Lula avocado is no exception, promising a fruit that’s creamy and mild, but carries a distinctively sweet profile alongside its nuttier flavor.
And their generous size—and proportionate nut—means there’s typically plenty of this good fruit to feast on.
How to Eat Lula Avocados
When it comes to the kitchen, Lula avocados follow in the footsteps of many of their brethren. The fruits are perhaps most delicious when eaten raw, thanks, again, to a hard-to-beat creaminess and the fact that the avocado’s bitter-tasting tannins get activated if the fruit gets cooked.
But that doesn’t mean these are a one-trick pony.
Lula avocados have just the right kind of oil content and mild-to-sweet taste to mix into nearly any recipe. You can whirl them into guacamole, of course, or get even more creative, using their amble fleshy base to round out everything from sauces to desserts. They’ve even been known to make an appearance in ingredient lists for brownies or chocolate mousse.
And the best part of sneaking Lula avocados into something sweet? Well, that’s probably getting to fool your friends. But only slightly less amusing is how much healthier the fruits can make a mousse.
Are Lula Avocados Good for You?
That’s thanks highly in part to the same fatty oils that make the Lula so delicious.
The substance is a huge source of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are one of the key building blocks of a brighter brain, better cardiovascular health, and even “good” cholesterol. And the body can’t naturally produce Omega-3s, despite needing them, making the Lula and its ilk even more important.
But the fruits are also powerhouses for nutrients like vitamins C, E, K and B6, as well as niacin, folate, magnesium and potassium.
Separately, this venerable list is responsible for a host of health benefits – including everything from heart heath to better vision to less brittle bones – thanks to their highly oxidizing properties that help keep cells of all sorts healthy and refreshed. But a spate of scientific studies have shown that some of these nutrients work even better when they work together, giving the Lula even more of a nutritional boost.
So Lula avocados are truly a treat to be enjoyed, from your cells on up.