How To Eat A Coconut
Tips on How To Eat A Coconut
Learning how to eat a coconut doesn't appear like it should be such a big deal, especially if you have a recipe or two handy for making a coconut smoothie, a coconut cream pie, or some other great tasting goodie. If you grew up in a household which had a bag or box of shredded coconut in the pantry, you do doubt helped yourself to a handful on more than one occasion.
At some point in life you might have been presented with a few chucks of fresh coconut meat, just removed from the shell. You learned that coconut doesn't naturally come shredded, or in a box, and there was maybe something more involved with how to eat coconut that you previously imagined.
My Dad got me started in learning how to eat a coconut. When I was still in my preteens, he gave me a coconut, husk and all, and a jackknife Since I loved the taste of coconut, it was certainly a treat to have one all to my self. As those of you who know what a coconut, fresh from the tree, looks like, you'll understand how my happiness soon turned to frustration, if not outright anger.
A Little Work Involved - The first step in figuring out how to eat a coconut, or at least that particular coconut, was figuring out how to cut through the hard outer shell. A hunting knife would have been easier than a jackknife, but what really would have made the job a lot easier would have been a machete. Once through the outer shell there was the coconut's protective layer of fiber to contend with, seemingly enough fiber to stuff a chair, if not a small mattress. One wouldn't think cutting through fiber with a jackknife would be all that difficult. Again, a machete would have been nice to have had, though I don't think I knew what a machete was at the time. Finally, with all the fiber taken care off, I had my coconut - a perfectly round coconut, about the size of a softball, and about as hard as a bowling ball.
The jackknife had now seemingly had outlived its usefulness. The next step in figuring out how to eat a coconut, in this case a small bowling ball, involved getting a hammer. A standard carpenter's hammer worked, though a 4-pound hand sledge hammer would have been a lot faster. Once the shell started to crack, I lost most, though not all, of the coconut milk, learning a lesson - there must be a better way.
Where's The Nail? - There is an additional step in getting at the coconut meat, I didn't know about, and I don't think my Dad did either. If he did, he was to busy laughing to tell me about it. Once you get the fiber removed, look for three little circles or "eyes" on one end of the coconut. Driving a nail through one of the eyes, and coconut milk will start to dribble out. If you're into advanced coconut preparation, you'll know enough to put holes in two of the eyes, so the milk will come out in a faster and even stream.
Once that's accomplished, whack away at the coconut shell until it breaks apart. There's a little line you can hit, which in doing so will cause the shell to break neatly into halves. Otherwise you'll get shards, which you can still work with.
Finally, Success! - Having accomplished this, the jackknife will come in handy again, more so than the machete actually, to separate the delicious coconut flesh from the shell.
If you're ever stranded on a desert island, where coconut palms grow, all you need to survive, besides knowing how to climb a coconut palm, is a machete, a hammer, and a nail.
Bon appétit!