Tika & The Avocado

Tika and I have a friend living in Miami who often sends us a box of HUGE avocados from the tree in her back yard. I'm sure these #3 monsters have a specific name but when I asked Tika, she said she had not a clue. After we enjoyed the last one, we decided to see if we could sprout one.......... you see how big it is by how it fills up a normal drinking glass. Think here in Spokane (Zone 5, -20 degrees) that we will ever see it grow to produce fruit?

This wonderful avocado got me to thinking........... first I was thinking about hubby's ancestors who lived in Georgia and other points south. Did they enjoy these huge avocados? Or is this a modern hybrid? Which caused me to wonder further....... how many "regional" foods do we know of that were NOT available to our ancestors? 

For instance, peanuts are synonymous with The South but did our pre-Civil War ancestors grow peanuts? What about peaches? Pears? Onions? We know they did not eat tomatoes, believing them to be poisonous.  Did they regularly eat meat from animals that we would avoid today? Like opossum? Squirrel? Anybody have any ideas about this??

(And no wonder English is so difficult to learn!  The plural of avocado is avocados,  no "e."  The plural of tomato is tomatoes, with the "e."  Go figure. Tika just says try barking and woofing all you want to say!)