I love coconut. I am a co-co-nut-nut. The only better flavor is chocolate, no, wait - chocolate WITH coconut. When I was young, I thought maybe coconut was a vegetable like rice, but somewhere along the way, I encountered a big brown hairy nut at a grocery store and learned a slightly more accurate image of the coconut.Still, I had visions when I began to sail, that someday I would be able to travel to distant tropical lands and there would be coconut palms on the beach. I would be able to stroll on the beach and pick up a few for quick snacks.
If you share this vision, let me just remind you that nothing is ever quite as simple as our imaginings. I have visited some tropical shores now. I have seen the coconut palms beckoning. I have gone to them and looked for coconuts and I have sometimes even found one. This is a primer for those of you who love coconut but do not know much about obtaining it in the wilds of the tropics. It is necessarily incomplete as I am still learning daily about coconuts - I will edit this as I learn more.
Coconut palms are often quite tall. They seem to grow to particularly great heights in woodlands and are a little lower next to beaches or in more or less open areas. Perhaps you have seen a National Geographic special of a south-seas-islander slipping a rope loop around his ankles and almost magically ratcheting himself up a coconut palm to great height to obtain the coconuts. There may even be documentation by N.G. of monkeys being trained to retrieve coconuts, but perhaps this is just my fantasy.<
A fisherman in the Dry Tortugas a few years ago obtained a number of coconuts quite quickly by climbing up on a convenient picnic table and hooking them vigorously out of a palm with a long-handled (15 feet I guess) fish gaff. But, having no monkey and no long pole with hook, if one is feeling spry and coconut deprived, then one may be tempted to give the the climb a go.
If a coconut palm has a lean to it - as is relatively more common near beaches where the root ball is more likely to be undermined by storm actions - and if the palm is less than about 25 feet tall; then the climb is not an unreasonable venture. Dispensing with the rope loop on the ankles, one may securely lace fingers together around the tree and carefully walk with shoes on, up the tree. Periodically give a little jerk toward the palm and quickly slip hands further up the tree - the trunk of a coconut palm is nicely smooth but still provides adequate traction for climbing easily. If the palm is leaning over 10 degrees or more, this power-pole-lineman technique will allow the reasonably fit and non-contemplative individual to quickly reach a height to which they should never have gone.
Upon reaching the elevation of the coconuts the climb must necessarily cease as one's arms cannot encircle the coconuts, palm fronds, bird nests, roaches, and other debris that inhabits the top of a palm tree. The coconuts are firmly attached to the palm tree and will not come loose with a simple head butt, and they are too large to grasp with one's teeth. Instead of climbing with just arms around the tree, if one had a belt or rope loop, then it might be possible at this point to release the tree and begin to wrestle the coconut loose. Alas, this coconut-nut has not yet planned a coconut retrieval mission with this level of expertise.
No, at this point, without looking down, just give the coconut palm a mighty hug and wrap legs tight around the trunk. Then let go with one arm and begin batting and flailing at the coconuts in hopes one of them is almost ready to descend. Note that coconuts are attached to the tree with a fibrous but thin branch, usually no more than about 1/4 inch in diameter. The branch is tough - it usually takes a gale of wind to knock a coconut loose. But, if one can rotate the coconut in a manner to twist this fiber about three or four full rotations, even a green coconut will come loose. Do not apply this technique to coconuts directly overhead.
Your grip on the palm tree must be tiring, but bear another moment. Coconuts start bright green. Once they grow to a size a little smaller than a human head, they are entering the potential-snack-realm. I do not know how long they take to mature, but from looking at several in the same tree and comparing those aloft and those on the ground, it seems that they gradually yellow and some seem to gradually elongate in the middle, late in their attachment to the palm, they may even begin to develop a woody appearance around the middle.
When they are bright green, the nut shell inside is whitish and contains primarily water. These are called water nuts by some. The inside of the shell has a thin gelatinous layer which is almost clear. The water is mildly sweet and refreshing. It seems to have a faintly carbonated feel on the tongue. As they begin to yellow, the shell is hardening, the gelatinous layer is gradually whitening and thickening, and the water volume is gradually diminishing. In this intermediate state, the coconut meat is transitioning from the consistency of pudding to the more familiar fibrous character of coconut flakes. By the time the coconut is yellowish all over this process is complete. Thereafter the coconut is just drying out.
There is a disease of coconuts which causes even the smallest nuts to turn yellow. I have heard this disease mentioned and seen trees apparently affected, but I do not know much about it and have not opened a diseased nut so far. The disease is memorably named "Lethal Yellowing" and the nuts from such a tree, though they contain palatable water and may even produce some meager amount of coconut meat, are not viable to produce new coconut palms. Trees with Lethal Yellowing can be treated with an antibiotic, but this is expensive. Malaysian coconuts are resistant to Lethal Yellowing and some of this variety of coconut are being introduced slowly, but in southern Belize and Honduras, coconuts are rapidly becoming scarce due to this and another disease (Coconut beetle) of the endogenous palms.
If you do not care for water nuts - I do not, and the tree you have selected to climb contains nothing else, then at least your climbing-oats have been sown. You are done and may descend. If spectators wonder why you came down empty handed, you may discuss the points above. But more likely, the spectators will be rushing up to ask if you are in much pain &ellip;f
The National Geographic special shows the South-Seas-Islander ratcheting up the palm but it never shows how he came down. I cannot fathom it. Maybe bungee jumping derives from this predicament. I just slide down fireman pole fashion until the insides of my legs start to hurt, then look for a soft landing spot and jump the rest of the way. See my note above about selecting a tree that is not too tall - your height tolerance may vary.
Back to the topic of selecting from among the available coconuts for a moment. Theoretically, one may find a coconut already fallen. If you crave a water nut, then you are probably out of luck, but if you like dry coconut, then fallen nuts are a possibility. However, in the places where I have seen productive coconut palms, the ground beneath is usually the domain of coconut crabs. These shy creatures have a difficult task in store to reach the meat - as we shall see. And coconuts are not falling every day, so the crabs' supply is limited. Unless there are many many coconuts laying about, I think the fallen ones belong to the crabs. It is not sporting to gather them.
This brings me to the point related to descending from the tree. When looking for a landing spot as one prepares to leap off the palm tree, it is beneficial to avoid jumping onto a coconut crab hole. These crabs are relatively large and if you land on their burrow, you could twist an ankle. It is prudent to scout the area in advance for crab holes as they are difficult to spy from aloft - believe me!
The brown coconut you may find in the grocery store has been removed from its packing crate. The coconut palm grows nuts that are amazingly equipped for ocean voyaging - able to withstand days or weeks at sea, the crashing of waves, and ultimately being storm tossed onto a distant shore. You think opening one is going to be like peeling an apple??
The first method of coconut opening applies to mature nuts either well yellowed and perhaps already fallen from the tree, or those that are totally brown and fibrous. This method was bestowed to me by Dr. Robert Halley of the United States Geological Survey, St. Petersburg, Florida, to whom I am eternally grateful. Grasp the coconut husk firmly with both hands so the coconut stem axis is vertical. Strike the coconut firmly against a rock or other hard surface - almost throwing it down. Flip the coconut 180 degrees and repeat. After twenty or thirty blows, the nut will tear loose from the husk and the husk will part into three pieces which may be torn away from the nut by hand. It really works - on some nuts.
The second method of coconut opening, I observed to be employed by Rafael, a Cuban fisherman on a boat in the Dry Tortugas in 1999. Water nuts - or perhaps they were actually "Pudding Nuts" but they were green in any event, were opened for drinking. Rafael took the coconut in one hand - holding it near the stem-end. He used a large fish knife to "whittle" the opposite end of the husk to a point. I do not deal with as large fish as Rafael, so instead use a machete for coconut work. After whittling some husk away, the surface of the nut will be exposed in some cuts. This helps one judge the depth to strike for subsequent cuts with the blade. Continue to whittle until about the bottom 1/3 of the husk is cut away and the outer surface of the nut is exposed all around. Hold the coconut in the palm of the hand with the whittled point up, and with one stroke, strike this point off flat. A perfect outcome is that the blade will cut through the nut shell, but not completely through the nut meat inside. Then use the point of the blade to cut out a plug of the nut meat. For a flourish, this plug of coconut may be skewered on the blade tip and eaten immediately.
A water nut will be so full that there is no air space. An immediate refreshing drink is called for. Once a sip or a gulp or two is gone, a suitable quantity of rum may be poured into the coconut to dilute the water and the resulting mixture may be sipped at leisure.
Instead of topping the nut and drinking it, I have modified Rafael's method to one of complete coconut husk removal: by whittling as he did, then placing the nut vertically and chopping down the sides of the nut in three places to remove the remainder of the husk. This method works better for me on the deck of a boat than Dr. Halley's method as repeatedly smashing coconuts against my boat's deck disturbs the tranquility aboard and marrs the deck paint. However, the chopping method is undoubtedly more dangerous as it involves play with a large knife.
In places where coconuts are abundant, some homes have a wooden or metal stake in the ground with a sharp tip poking up, which they use to husk the nuts open. I infer this from the pile of discarded husks that almost invariably accompany such a stake, but I have not seen one in use so far. I have dabbled with using a stake to open nuts somewhat after Dr. Halley's method, but I do not have it down apparently. At such time as I learn the technique of opening coconuts on a stake, perhaps I will have one installed on the boat deck, and will provide information on this apparently popular method.
In Kuna Yala, the northeast coast of Panama, where the indigenous people gain much of their currency from trade in coconut, smashing of nuts on rocks or stakes is not observed. The Kunas have coconut tongs which have one end that looks like broad-lipped needle nose pliers (when closed, the plier ends form a relatively sharp point which extends about six inches from the hinge-pin). The handles are about four feet long. The Kuna jabs the closed point of the tongs downward into the husk of a nut and then opens the handles prying the husk apart.
Interestingly, since I have done much of my coconut opening on the white deck of a sailboat, I have noticed that coconut husk will stain fiberglass and therefore presumably could also stain other materials. Does anyone know anything about using coconut fiber as stain? It is a nice coconutty brown.
If you are just drinking a water nut, there is no point in cracking it - just lop off the top as Rafael would do, but whether you top the nut to drain it or gouge out one or more of the three eyes to drain it, it still must be cracked to get out the meat. This is easily and neatly done with a hammer by holding the nut in the palm of the left hand and tapping the nut firmly with the hammer. This is also the method of opening stone-crab claws. Once the nut cracks it will sound like a broken baseball bat when tapped - or more accurately, like a broken coconut. The crack may be "chased" around the nut with successive taps until the nut breaks into halves.
Rafael's method to reach the coconut meat from a drained nut, was to split the nut and whittled husk with one whack after the drinker was finished drinking, then any nut meat could be easily reached. My machete is apparently not quite as sharp. Rafael would also trim shavings of the green husk into spoons for removing the coconut meat.
When the coconut is not fully ripened and the meat is not firm, it may be scooped from the shell with a spoon. A heavy duty spoon with a relatively sharp edge seems to work best. I have obtained such a spoon and sharpened the edge with a file. It works quite well.
For the harder nut meat, a paring knife is useful for cutting the nut meat into 1" X 1/4" chunks and prying them out. There is a thin brown skin between the meat and the shell and this usually adheres to the coconut meat. It tastes just like coconut and does not affect the texture, so not to worry.
The meat of a coconut contains flavorful oil and emulsifier. The milk of a coconut is watery and clear. Coconut milk in a store is milky and sweet. I guess this is because some of the "juice" has been extracted from the coconut meat. I have also achieved this in a primitive fashion by placing some meat into a food processor and chopping it very fine. Then, a small amount of coconut milk may be added to the chopped nut to "wash" it. The milk that drains or is squeezed from this mixture is quite milky and sweet.
We bought some coconut oil in Placencia and became addicted to this elixir. Local coconut processors collect large quanities of coconut meat and crush it somehow and let the juice stand. The "milk" separates to some extent and the floating material is then cooked to remove water. A clear oil results. This oil, coco oil, is the essence of coconuts and is marvellous stuff. You can cook with it, use it on a salad like olive oil, or rub it on your skin like a lotion. A few drops is good in about anything. Coconut oil can be made from the nuts of a tree with Lethal Yellowing, but it takes about ten times as many nuts to get the same amount of oil. Coco oil - never for sale openly, only if you know to ask and know who to ask - has become quite scarce in Belize and the Bay Islands of Honduras, unfortunately.
Well, this is all I can say about coconut work I think. If you would like to add anything to this discussion, please feel free to send me an email, and if I can use it, I will be glad to post it in this page with whatever credits or links you suggest. Happy coconut eating.
Lethal yellowing disease has not yet reached the islands of Panama. The Kuna indians of Northeast Panama have long depended upon coconut trade for a little cash income. Historically, they sold nuts for about $US 0.10 each, but increased production in Colombia has driven the price down to only about $0.05 each in the large cargos. We understand that Kuna indians who buy coconuts in stores (rather than harvesting them directly) will still pay about $0.20 and gringoes like us will be charged $0.50. In Kuna Yala, harvesting of coconuts by non-Kunas is strictly prohibited (even on uninhabited islands!) and punishable by a fine of $US25 per cocounut illegally harvested.
In early 2005, a local Kuna coconut farmer gave me an un-husked nut as a gift. Later the same day, I returned to the beach to hack away the husk (the husk fibers turn steel black and white fiberglass gelcoat a chocolatey brown after brief contact). Local boys besieged me with a demand for US$25 and it took an hour of persistent explanation and gesturing to convince them I had not obtained the nut illegally!
author (left) and crew of Filia enjoy their sundowner drinks - careful with the rum, Ulli!