Split Pea Guacamole—Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café?

Remember the Great Avocado Crunch of 2022?  When Mexico’s suspension of avocado exports put restaurants into a panic?  The more respectable establishments simply informed their clientele that avocados and guacamole were unavailable until further notice.  The seedier places?  Do you remember their solution?  Split pea guacamole?

Shudder.

I tried to muster the courage to give it a try back then.  I failed.  Miserably.

But like that stupid moth drawn to the flame, I couldn’t forget.  And then I came across recipes that proclaimed the imposter “really good.”  “Divine.”

Surely they wouldn’t lie.  Right?

QOTPE had already used that week’s avocados to make some guacamole.  And then for her last dinner at home, she requested quesadillas.  Quesadillas are really good with salsa and sour cream, but they’re better with guacamole.  Maybe I could pull off a substitution.

So I went in search of recipes.  Some called for straight split peas; some half split-pea, half avocado.  Some went off the deep end and used frozen green peas.  I thought the half-split pea, half-avocado could amount to a tragic waste of pure avocado mash; I didn’t want to go there.  Besides, I didn’t have an avocado.

So straight split peas it was.

Split Pea Guacamole

3 cups water

1 cup dry green split peas

½ cup chopped cilantro

¼ cup lime juice (about 1 lime)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

½ teaspoon cumin

1/8 teaspoon hot sauce (optional)

1 medium tomato, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

In a small saucepan, bring water and split peas to a boil. Then simmer 45-60 minutes until soft.  Remove from heat and strain out any excess water.

In a small bowl, mash split peas with a fork until smooth. Stir in the cilantro, lime juice, garlic, cumin, hot sauce, tomatoes, and onions. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Family reviews:  Well, as you suspect, this probably isn’t going to go well. 

First off, surprisingly, the color was a perfect match for real guacamole.  The appearance of the texture was a little off, and that’s what set off the alarms for King of the Picky Eaters.  But he still partook, and so did Buttercup, who is pregnant but past the first trimester, so her taste buds aren’t totally warped.  Queen of the Picky Eaters, the true guacamole guru, refused to touch it with a 10-foot pole and merely laughed her mocking laugh at the rest of the family.  My dear husband took a taste because he had to.  I ate several bites, perhaps looking for anything of redeeming value in the recipe.

Nope.  There was nothing, well, except for the fact that it doesn’t oxidize and start looking like you know what pretty quickly.

Look, it’s not like it was that bad.  It wasn’t like that banana peel fakin bacon, a truly horrendous experience.  If you raised kids eating this, you’d pull it off just fine.  If you gradually substituted some split peas for some guacamole every week for a couple of months, you could transition kids away, especially if they had plenty of chips to work with.  But teens and adults are going to know the difference. 

For KOTPE, Buttercup, QOTPE, and my husband, this recipe was a hard pass.  I am sure Ellie and Blueberry Girl would pass.  I think Professor and Belle would eat it, but maybe not a lot of it.  For me, I’d say it was a soft pass.  But it’s not like it was truly horrible, given a choice between split pea soup and split pea guacamole, I’d choose the latter every time.  (Some things you never get over, and parents forcing their little girl to eat barfy split pea soup is one of them.) 

Links to related posts:

Guacamole 

Banana Peel Fakin Bacon