1977 was a difficult year for the owners of The Starship, the luxury Boeing 720 plane that had been used to fly Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Elton John around the US since 1973.
The rising cost of jet fuel meant that bookings of the plane had dried up, leaving it parked in the open at Long Beach in California with Peter Frampton’s name still painted on the side from his 1976 world tour.
With unpaid interest payments on a $650,000 loan from Bank of America mounting up and Led Zeppelin choosing to hire a different plane for the band’s 1977 US tour, The Starship’s co-owner Ward Sylvester was desperate to find a new rock band willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire his plane.
Eventually, he came up with a bizarre plan: Throughout 1977, Sylvester partnered with the California Avocado Advisory Board to place more than 10 articles in newspapers across the US that promoted the luxury plane through avocado recipes purportedly served on board by the plane’s chef Siegfried Daniel.
According to the articles which LedZepNews has discovered by searching newspaper archives, Daniel regularly served rockstars avocado soufflé, guacamole, avocados with seafood and even an avocado “pie”.
“Many of the people who are guests on Starship One prefer light and uncomplicated food while on the road,” an article published in The Mobile Register on March 24, 1977 read.
It seems unlikely that Daniel existed. Instead, he seems to have been an invention created for the promotional campaign. No other articles about the plane mention Daniel, despite other crew members such as stewardess Suzee Carnel being named repeatedly in the press at the time.
The promotional campaign came as the California Avocado Advisory Board expected a larger than normal harvest in 1977.
“A bumper crop of 255 million pounds – more than twice the amount harvested last year – is expected to be picked in California during 1977,” an article published in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on March 10, 1977 reported, citing a report published by the California Avocado Advisory Board before sharing some of Daniel’s avocado recipes.
Desperate for publicity for both The Starship and Californian avocados, a letter boasting about the supposedly hard-to-obtain Starship avocado recipes was planted in the food section of The Flint Journal on May 18, 1977.
“Here is a recipe I bet you can’t get,” the letter sent by someone claiming to be a Flint resident named “Jan Works” began. “There is a private aircraft called the Starship One, which is rented to such people as Elton John and the Rolling Stones, who want to spend their travel times between concert tour stops in airborne luxury.”
“The recipe is for Avocado Souffles, as served by the plane’s private chef. Betcha’ can’t!”
Joy Gallagher, the newspaper’s food editor, responded to the letter using promotional material provided by the California Avocado Advisory Board.
“Bet you I can – and did,” she wrote. “The California Avocado Advisory Board got it from the chef, Siegfried Daniel. It is original recipe. They even sent a photograph. So there!”
It’s unclear whether the avocado recipes printed in the newspapers in 1977 were ever served on board The Starship.
But for Sylvester, the rising costs of the plane meant that everything was fair game when it came to promoting The Starship.
In 1974, Sylvester seemingly planted an article in the trade magazine Friday Morning Quarterback claiming that The Beatles had agreed to reunite and had hired The Starship for a US tour.
“At the moment, I cannot confirm or deny the report,” Sylvester said in response to the rumour that he likely planted himself.
“I’ve heard a lot of rumours about a Beatles reunion and understand that they do want to hire our plane, if anything comes together,” he added.
Despite the Beatles reunion rumour and avocado recipes, Sylvester never managed to find any more clients for his plane after 1976.
On February 25, 1977, Sylvester breached the conditions of a $650,000 loan from Bank Of America, a certificate of repossession obtained by LedZepNews from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shows.
With no payments on the promissory note being made, Bank of America repossessed The Starship’s four engines on November 10, 1977.
By May 17, 1978, Bank Of America had taken possession of the entire plane, registering with the FAA as its new owner.
In case you wanted to recreate The Starship’s avocado recipes at home, here they are:
Avocado soufflé
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of sour cream
- 1 cup of sifted flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons of salt
- ¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1 cup of avocado, pureed
- ½ cup Gruyere cheese, grated
- 5 eggs, separated
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix sour cream, flour and seasonings with avocado. Stir in cheese and egg yolks, which have been beaten until thick and lemon-coloured.
In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into avocado-cheese mixture. Fill four 1 ½ cup buttered soufflé dishes with mixture. Bake 30-40 minutes. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.
Guacamole
Ingredients
- 2 ripe avocados, peeled and seeded
- ½ ripe tomato, peeled and finely chopped
- ½ green pepper, seeded and finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons of Ortega chillis
- 1 teaspoon of onion salt
- ½ teaspoon of chilli powder
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ¼ teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon of lime juice
- ¼ cup of mayonnaise
Mash avocado with fork. Blend in remaining ingredients except mayonnaise. Spread mayonnaise over top to keep from darkening. (Will allow to sit for several hours.) When ready to serve, stir in mayonnaire. Serve with corn chips.
Avocados with seafood
Ingredients
- 2 avocados
- Lemon juice
- 1 cup of diced cooked shrimp
- 1/3 cup of diced raw mushrooms
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- ¼ cup of mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon of dry sherry
- 2 teaspoons of catsup
- 1 ½ teaspoons of grated horseradish
- ½ teaspoon of powdered mustard
- 12 peeled, deveined and cooked whole shrimp (optional)
- 20 yellow cheese balls (optional)
- Black olives (optional)
Cut avocados in half lengthwise and remove the seed by carefully whacking a sharp knife into it and twisting. Brush insides of shells with lemon juice to prevent discolouration.
Combine shrip, mushrooms, salt and pepper with mayonnaise, sherry, catsup, horseradish and mustard. Blend well. Spoon into the avocado halves.
If desired, garnish each with 3 whole shrimp and 3 cheese balls topped with a bit of black olive. Makes 4 servings.
Crustless avocado chiffon “pie”
Ingredients:
- 1 package of plain gelatin
- ¼ cup of hot water
- Juice of 1 lemon
- ½ cup of sugar
- 1 cup of whipping cream, whipped
- 3 tablespoons of honey
- 1 cup avocado, pureed (about 2 medium)
- Whipped cream
Dissolve gelatin in hot water and lemon juice, cool. In separate bowl, gradually add sugar to whipping cream. Slowly blend this with cooled gelatin mixture and blend in honey.
Gently fold into avocado puree and place in 8-inch pie plate. Chill for several hours. Decorate top with whipped cream immediately before serving. To serve, spoon into individual serving dishes, or cut in wedges.
Note: If desired, this chiffon mixture can be served in an 8-inch prepared graham cracker crust and sliced into wedges.
I could imagine led zeppelin members looking at an avocado pie thinking “WTF?”