alligator pear

The references may have changed — “alligator pears” instead of avocado toast; Vionnet, not Vuori; telegrams rather than texting — but the preoccupation with love, money, fun and trouble is eternal.

The fruits were beautiful inside the windows—bananas, oranges, alligator pears, bright little kumquats, and even a few pineapples.

Same with avocado, which achieved superstardom after dropping the name “alligator pear.”

That is how I come to climb up the alligator pear tree when I saw them.

At some point by the late 19th century, Americans had begun to call the crop the “alligator pear,” another name in which growers saw their own ruin.