May the 5th (Cinco de Mayo) celebrates the Mexican victory over French armies at the Battle of Puebla, 1862. To celebrate, Miss Ava Cado invited myself and fellow Canadian food bloggers to come up with a great guacamole recipe featuring Mexican avocados. Since I work here at Canadian Living, and we have amazing recipes already, I decided to adapt from my favourite chunky guacamole recipe from our Test Kitchen - Layered Guacamole (recipe at bottom). And since I didn't have to work too hard to publish a great recipe, I decided to tell the story of The Battle of Puebla, in guacamole. Historical facts from Wikipedia. In 1862, two hilltop forts were situated just north of Puebla - Fort Loreto (left) and Fort Guadaloupe (right). Mexican Commander General, Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, dug a trench to join and protect the two forts. On May 5, against all advice, French Army General Charles de Lorencez attacked Puebla from the north, having to first advance past Fort Loreto and Fort Gadaloupe. However, Lorencez started his attack too late in the day, using up his artillery just before noon. He then immediately advanced his infantry. By their third attack, the French army had already used up all of their reserves. The French artillery had run out of ammunition, so the third infantry attack had to face the Mexicans without any support. By 3 pm, the daily rainfall began and the battlefield became a slippery mess. French General Lorencez withdrew to distant positions, counting 462 of his men killed against only 83 of the Mexicans. Lorencez waited for 33-year-old Mexican General Zaragoza to attack again in coming days, but Zaragoza held his ground. Lorencez then completely withdrew. The hilltop forts were never breached, and Puebla remained safe. Viva! el Cinco de Mayo! Battle of Puebla Guacamole (adapted from Layered Guacamole by The Canadian Living Test Kitchen)

• 4 ripe Mexican avocados - black-skinned but not too squishy. A chunky guacamole needs some firmness.
• 1/2 cup minced red onion
• 2 tbsp minced jalapeno peppers - I used 1/2 a pepper and included some seeds for spiciness.
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tbsp (I used 2 cap-fulls) extra-virgin olive oil - I highly recommend a grassy, Sicilian olive oil to give an herbaceous kick to the guacamole.
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 tsp salt - I used 3 turns of my salt grinder
• 3/4 tsp pepper - another 3 turns of the pepper grinder
• 1/2 plum tomato, seeded and diced
• Optional: 2 tbsp minced fresh coriander. My husband HATES coriander - and helped set up my armies - so I left it out of this recipe and it actually tasted fine.

Preparation Pit and peel avocados; cube neatly. In bowl, gently toss together avocados, onion, jalapeno pepper, lime juice, oil, garlic, tomato, salt and pepper. Best eaten right away, but you can cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours. Serve with tortilla chips, broccoli, bell peppers, little green army men, horses, and triumphant Mexican flags. Do you put coriander in your guacamole, or do you leave it out?