Learning to love Shepard avocados: ‘Unlike the Hass, this is smooth, rich and unthreatening’

The Shepard avocado: ‘Thick like custard but savoury like mushrooms. Imagine crème caramel but miraculous.’ Photograph: Kateryna Bibro/Alamy

Inside you there are two avocados. One is a glorious emerald nugget. Its skin ripples over its perfect egg shape, with the gnarled knots of an ancient tree. It fades from forest green to midwinter black, its flesh the pale sage of a childhood crayon. And it wears its heart openly: when it is soft on the outside, it is soft on the inside, too.

The other avocado is an angry rock.