All hail the brown paper bag trick

(Clearly I need an icon for food-related posts, even if they don't come around very often.)

I wanted an avocado to serve with the other veggies at today's Romance Exchange. All the ones I tried at Trader Joe's last night were insufficiently ripe, in my opinion. I bought the least crunchy one I could find, put it in a brown paper bag, and left it overnight. This afternoon, it's on the edge of perfect.

I assume it's actually the outgassing from the fruit, and wonder if a Ziploc bag would work just as well. Or maybe the porousness of the bag has something to do with it, too. Doubtless someone else has already done the research.