The Coconut: “Tree of Life” in the South Pacific

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hey there-
hope you all had a wonderful father's day weekend. and i hope you enjoy this blog! coconuts are a super versatile product as you'll soon learn. pretty sweet stuff! take care - b


8 April 2010

While many of my readers easily associate the silhouette of a coconut palm with island vacations and scenic postcards, few may know that the tree has a multitude of practical uses for the residents of the islands in the South Pacific. Before moving to Vanuatu, I was right there with you; thinking the most ideal use for the coconut tree was to string up a hammock, for the nut to have a cute umbrella and straw poking out the hole with a tropical drink inside. In fact, utilizing this useful tree’s palms, nuts, and flowers has become a part of Justin and I’s daily life here. In this blog, I’ll preview some of the uses of the plant from my perspective as a resident islander (aka: this is not scientific information, just a personal account and observations).

Let’s start with the tree itself. The coconut is brilliantly engineered for life in the tropics. The trunk is rather flexible and able to sway, instead of snap, in strong winds. This is especially useful during hurricane season. Also, the palms, extending out from the tree’s trunk, are “V” shaped, funneling water towards it’s’ center where it flows down the trunk and into the roots below it. It’s “seeds” (the coconuts themselves) are portable, buoyant, and strongly protected. While I have seen every type of animal on the island eat coconut, most rely on humans to crack the nut open and expose the tasty meat inside. To put it simply, the coconut palm is an ideal balance of being thick-skinned yet adaptable, while still proving useful to others and thereby securing its’ place in the ecosystem of the islands.

The wood of a coconut tree is not very strong, but because the trunks tend to grow straight, they are useful for posts or stools around the house. Moving on up the tree, the palms themselves are exceptionally useful. As the tree ages, the bottom layer of palms eventually dries out and falls to the ground. They are very flammable and the common starter material to almost every cookfire on the island. During hurricane season, green palms can be harvested from the tree and fastened together at the top ends. The upside down “V” is then draped over the peaked rooftops of local houses. As the local material for roofing is another variety of dried leave, the heavy green palms help weigh the otherwise vulnerable roof down during the high winds of hurricane season. The strong middle of each leaf on the coconut palm, which Bislama aptly refers to as the “bun,” or bone, of the leaf, can be collected to make brooms, or used like toothpicks with checking the doneness of cakes.

As the coconut tree heads into maturity, it starts to produce green “flowers:” pale, green, twig type growths with what looks like small berries of the same color. With time, these “berries” will grow into coconuts. There is a canoe shaped pod that protects the flower until it is ready to open. When the coconuts mature and fall down, the flower (twigs and pod alike) also dries out. The dry flowers are also quite flammable and useful for cookfires. When a family hasn’t the time to gather firewood, they could get by cooking for a few days with the dry coconut flowers.

At the base of the lowest layer of palms, one can find fiberous strips detaching themselves from the tree. They remind me of the strong material used to make jute or old, scratchy potato sacks. These are useful in straining coconut milk or kava before consumption.

The most obviously useful part of the coconut tree is the nut itself. A coconut tree is always “in season.” At any given time, the tree is bearing fruit in about three different stages of maturity. The bottom most layers of palms on a tree will bear the most mature nuts, either green or progressing to the brown, dry phase. Directly above those nuts, another layer of them are starting to grow, ready to earn the “bottom most layer” title and become the most sought after nuts as soon as the dry coconuts and their surrounding palms dry out and fall down. And directly above these is yet another layer, probably still at the berry size. And so the coconut continues to grow up and not out, concentrating its energy into growing towards the sun and producing fruit.

The diet of an islander maximizes on the diverse uses of a coconut. While it is still green, the coconuts are harvested from the tree to drink. The green husk of the nut is removed to expose a pale, vulnerable looking coconut shell. Indeed the green coconut shell is much softer than a dry one. The “water” of a green coconut is an excellent rehydrating beverage, full of electrolytes. To me, the water of a green coconut tastes like watered down Sprite, and I would rather rehydrate with plain ol’ water. Justin loves to drink green coconuts.

In green coconuts, water is just starting to congeal and attach itself to the insides of the coconut shell. You can split the coconut in half and eat the soft meat too. Often, Justin will drink the coconut and I’ll eat the inside, which reminds me of a naturally sweetened Jell-O. If I’m not around to eat the insides, Justin still makes sure to crack open the shell before he discards the coconut. Leaving the shell intact is asking for trouble on Maewo: it is believed that if a shell is left intact and a black lizard crawls into the shell, the person who drank from the coconut with be “spoiled.” So literally is this belief followed that I have never seen a discarded, intact green coconut shell during my life on Maewo. And I’ve sure seen a lot of coconuts.

If a coconut is not harvested green for drinking, then the green husk eventually dries out to a brown color. When the coconut’s husk is completely dry, it falls to the ground. Even though it is called a dry coconut, if you shake the nut, you will still hear some of the water splashing around inside. Though not as bountiful or as sweet as in the green stage, the water of a dry coconut is still drinkable. Getting the husk off a coconut is a chore. Some homes have a sharpened stick in their yard for this task. They expertly jam the nut down on the sharpened point, loosening the husk away from the inner shell and eventually peeling the husk off that way. Another method is to whack the husk all around with a bush knife and pull off the husk in chunks by hand. Justin, my resident coconut wonderman, accomplishes the final part of this task by holding the nut still with his bare feet and yanking off sections of the husk with his hands. The husks themselves are also saved and used for fires. I especially like them while baking, they stay lit, burn slowly, and are perfect for stacking on top of a saucepan’s lid to more closely achieve an oven-like effect.

The coconut without its husk is about half the size. A bush knife is used to split the coconut in half and then the scratching begins. Local scratchers are made of a seashell with a jagged edge and the meat is scraped out that way. Most families have a metal version, a flattened circle with sharp teeth around the edges like a saw blade. This is attached to a plank of wood, or sometimes built into a stool. The coconut scratcher will cup half of the nut in his palm and rub the insides of the nut against the tool to scrape out the meat.

These fresh coconut flakes are the most akin to what we spend a ludicrous amount of money for to bake things like cookies and cakes in the States. However, people here were shocked when I mentioned using coconut in this state to bake with. Since flour is a relatively new commodity, so baking sweets with coconut is as well. Coconuts on Maewo are free and in excess, so I am soaking up baking with fresh, free coconut while I have the chance.

After scratching all the white meat out of the coconut, the coconut flakes are then “milked.” Sometimes the residual water of the nut is added to the scratched pieces, sometimes fresh water is added, or sometimes water is foregone altogether, all depending on the milks’ intended use. If a thicker cream is desired, there will be no added liquid. Milking coconut without added liquid is much harder. To milk the coconut, the scratched pieces are hand squeezed until they are dry. Sometimes the milk is strained to remove solid bits of fiber or coconut meat that may have fallen in. Then the milk can be added to food.

It can be added to boiled bananas and taro, used like frosting on laplap, and substituted for milk in baking recipes. Our favorite banana bread recipe on the island calls specifically for one cup of coconut milk. Justin also uses the coconut milk to make curried taro or, on exceptional occasions, curried beef. Coconut milk is the island equivalent of butter and seasoning of foods. Though my concerned sister alerted me to the shocking health statistics in relation to coconut milk, the fact that it is being used in place of butter, salt, and other seasonings justify my ingestion of it. Anything to help slide down that laplap.

The shell, which is now devoid of meat, still has a few potential purposes. Coconut shells are exceptionally combustible as they have soaked up a bit of coconut oil. They are helpful for starting and maintaining strong burning fires, such as those used to heat stones in preparation for baking laplap. Some shells are cleaned out and shined to use as “lasas,” or cups, for drinking kava. Around our house, coconut shells appear to me to be oozing potential for a variety of craft projects. If I get a hold of them, they may be turned in to Christmas ornaments, necklaces, earrings, even candle holders.

Even with all these tasty (and crafty) uses for the dry coconut, not all of them are picked up at this stage. If a dry coconut is left alone, eventually the water inside will solidify to the consistency of a spongy marshmallow and a sprout will break through the husk. Bislama dubbed the solidified middle of a coconut like this a “nafara.” Nafaras are my host brother Aldayer’s favorite snack, and he is especially adept at picking out the really sweet ones. I try to eat about one a week because they seem to make my sweat smell sweeter.

It is also at this stage that the coconuts are harvested for selling as the cash crop of copra. The shells are split and placed over a copra oven for a few days to dry out. Then they are sold by the kilo to exporters. Oil for skin, soaps, and lotions are among the products made from the exported copra.

If not harvested for copra, or a snack, the meat inside of the coconut will provide nourishment for a new coconut tree. Some families have plantations where they strategically space the growing young trees for maximum nut production, but many also grow “wild”, interspersed with the rest of the flora on Maewo. When a tree reaches the end of its producing years, it simply stops growing. All the dry nuts and palms fall down and the lone trunk stands, seemingly naked. Eventually, the trunk dries out and falls down, hopefully to be replaced by one of its offspring in this inexplicably grand circle of life.

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Photos

Coconut Plantation
With dry coconuts on the ground.

Flower
Green coconuts in three phases. The lowest ones are started to dry out, at the top are small “berry sized” nuts just started to fill out, and a mid-sized layer in between.

Coconut Scraper and Broom
On the left, our coconut scraper. On the right, a broom made of the strong “bone” from coconut palm leaves.

Coconut Jell-O
The soft coconut meat inside of a green coconut.

Coconut Husk
On the right, a dry coconut as it would on the tree or right after falling. On the left, a coconut de-husked.

Scratching Coconuts
A common household chore. Justin and his host papa scratching coconuts.

Milking the Coconut
Justin milking the meat of a dry coconut.

Nafara
The coconut-marshmallow snack. Notice the stem growing out, ready to join the next generation of coconut trees.

Copra Oven
The two metal pipes on the ground would hold fire and the coconut would dry out on top, where the white bags are. In this picture, those white bags are full of copra, ready to sell when the cargo ship comes back.