Phagomania: Guac Attack

Avocados, eh? What are they all about? They look like reptile eggs that have been left out in the sun, they bruise if you look at them too hard, and crack one open and what do you know, there’s an enormous rock in the middle. To misquote Edwin Starr, avocados – what are they good for?

Well, guacamole actually. It may look a little odd and require as much care as a newborn calf, but treat it right and it takes its place as the king of dips.

One place where they treat the guac with the respect it deserves is the Guac Bowl, an annual guacamole competition hosted by Adam Pava that takes the concept of ‘putting dip in a bowl’ and turns it on its head, then attaches rockets to the bowl and sends it flying around the room.

We’re talking the whole gamut here, from giant guacamole skeletons to avocado-based simulations of arcade classics like Ms. Pacman. But, as Pava tells us, it wasn’t always this way.
He says: “Guac Bowl started over a decade ago, with very humble beginnings. At first, it was just my roommates and I all wanting to make the guacamole for our Super Bowl party. So I said 'Fine, let's each make one, and we'll vote on which is best.'"

“That was fun, so we decided to do it again the following year, inviting more friends to enter... But without telling anyone, I added a Best Presentation category to guarantee myself a victory! I knew nobody else would decorate their guacamole. It was a pretty basic presentation that year – just a lot of American flags; red, white and blue chips, etc. and I called it Guac Bless America – but it struck a nerve, and unleashed the floodgates for years of more and more creative presentations.

“The following year, people really upped the creativity, making bigger and crazier presentations, and stranger types of guac, like guac ice cream and guac beer. That's when we started the Best Alternative Guac category to account for all the non-traditional entries.”

Things got very ‘non-traditional’ very quickly, and the Guac Bowl quickly became a must-see online for its diverse (guacamole served from a pair of shorts) and unexpected (guacamole served from a giant plaster nose) design.

Pava writes: “I credit the growth of the party to my creative friends. I work as an an animation writer (a movie I wrote called ‘The Boxtrolls’ starring Simon Pegg is out in September!), and usually, the biggest entries come from one of two types of people.

“There are the art directors like my friend Rob Saccenti who made the Han-Solo-in-Carbonite guac entry, and an Aliens-inspired entry, or the friends with way too much time on their hands like last year's winner, Brandon Oropallo, who also made the giant nose the year before.”

So you see, all it takes to turn a stubborn avocado into a work of art is a little imagination, and a lot of free time. Better clear your schedule and make some space in the fridge...