Food & Photography

Happiness is a Freshly Cracked Coconut

This is amongst the foods I eat every day here in Trinidad & Tobago

Believe it or not, I first fell in love with freshly cracked coconuts while growing up on a potato farm in Idaho. Weird but true.

Back in the mid-1980s, our local grocery store, Albertson’s, had begun to stock freshly shipped whole coconuts. Both of my parents were great lovers of food, and so we had to try them out.

Part of the fun became the actual cracking of the coconut, and we’d all fight over who would do the cracking. It started off being my dad of course, but then, after the first one or two, he’d let us kids do the cracking.

Living on a farm, we had plenty of hammers around and no pesky rules about safety. We were left to use our own intellect to keep ourselves safe, and hey, not managing to kill ourselves was akin to full victory.

It was great fun to set the coconut on the cement driveway and give the thing a great big whack — hearing the satisfying thwaaack! — and see pieces of the coconut fly in all directions. Talk about letting out some aggression!

Ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit. I mean, we didn’t pulverize the thing because we still wanted to eat that sweet, lovely coconut meat.

First of course though, we’d gouge out one of the ‘eyes’ of the coconut with an ice pick so we could drain out the coconut water into a glass. My dad loved drinking the coconut water, completely unstrained, and we just went ahead and let him do that.

I remember thinking back then that drinking the coconut water was a little weird, but of course I do so now — either via a straw and a ‘water’ coconut (which is a very young coconut)…

…or by tossing the mature coconut water into my lunchtime smoothie — although I do strain it as it comes out of the coconut. If not, you get little bits of coconut ‘hairs’ and other such refuse in the water, which my dad must not have minded but I myself find a bit gag-worthy.

Not to gross you out too much, but I do have a bit of a gag reflex when it comes to certain foods — I cannot eat applesauce, even though I love apples, for instance, due to the odd consistency.

My dad, though, being the big ol’ strapping Swede he was, was the one who would also eat cooked cow livers, whole sardines, and drink the water while swimming in the ocean when we went on vacations to beach areas of the world — he loved the salty-fishy taste of the water. He would never eat a pig though, and pork products weren’t allowed to touch any of our lips in his household. I never ate a piece of pork bacon until I snuck a piece from one of my non-Kosher friends when I was sixteen. Delish!

Yeah, my dad was just real delightfully strange like that.

My mom loved fresh coconut as well and would often grate it onto a frosted cake or bake it into cookies or whatever. But just as much, we loved to eat the raw fresh coconut with the brown skin still intact.

Well now, thank you mom and dad, for instilling in us the love of fresh coconut, as well as many other natural wonders on this amazing planet — both of whom I hope are thoroughly enjoying themselves in some kind of ‘heaven’ somewhere. 🥹😭🥹

Back to the present, the best part of living on a Caribbean Island, is that I get to partake of the freshest coconuts the planet has to offer. The optimal way to purchase them is from the small indie vendors with a steady clientele. They do not keep large supplies and so it’s virtually guaranteed that you get a coconut that was freshly picked that morning.

Most recently, I purchased the two beauties above from a Rastafarian man with a small corner market on Eastern Main Road near where we live. The price was $16 TTD, which, at the current rate, equates to $2.35 USD. A bargain, eh?

This here is my coconut cracking ‘kit’, if you will: a good-sized hammer, a strainer, and a paring knife.

The first thing I do, as mentioned before, is to gouge out one of the eyes with the paring knife and remove any of the dark brown stuff in and around the ‘eye’. Even though there are three eyes, one in particular will usually be much easier and softer to pierce than the rest in order to make a good-sized hole. Then, I strain out the coconut water to incorporate later into my smoothies.

Once the water is drained and strained it’s time to do the coconut cracking, which is always my favorite part. I do not do this inside the house but rather go outside where there is a hard surface and plenty of room. When smacking the coconut, the pieces tend to scatter.

Note that the smaller the pieces, the easier it is to get the meat off of the shell, so if I have larger chunks after giving it a good whack (or two) I will often give these larger chunks a whack as well.

I gather all this up into a bowl and head back into the house and make sure to place the hammer back exactly where hubby left it so that he does not freak out the next time he goes to use it. Life is just too short for such headaches!

It’s also imperative that the coconut is thoroughly washed to get rid of debris leftover from busting up the coconut outside.

Next comes the part that requires the most care, patience, and skill. Honestly, I’m going to go ahead and advise people to not try any of this coconut busting-up stuff at home at all — I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s injuries.

And so, at my own risk, I do take the knife, insert it between the meat of the coconut and the shell and carefully extract the yummy, delectable coconut. This tends to take just the right amount of pressure and skill with the knife, and of course I often have to eat some as I go.

When I first started doing this, I will admit to cutting myself just a tad. Nothing that required an emergency room or anything. But these days I can successfully do it without cutting myself one bit.

Removing all the coconut meat can take some time, but rushing the process can be the kiss of death, resulting in nasty cuts. Patience really is a virtue, especially when it comes to removing the meat from a coconut shell.

Fresh coconut tends to spoil quite rapidly, so I will leave a little in the fridge to eat as a quick snack over the next three days or so. The rest I will cut up into small pieces (like in the first photo above) and freeze. When it’s time to make my smoothies, I will toss in a few pieces along with pineapple, bananas, and peanuts.

Eating a chunk or two of frozen coconut is a nice treat as well. I toss a piece into my mouth, let it thaw a little, and then chew up the yummy goodness.

Such sheer happiness! Thinking of you here, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, for your joy in spreading around happiness and smiles. It is rather contagious, and I thank you so much for that!

Health benefits of fresh coconut

Coconuts equal healthy eating. According to this WebMD article, coconut is a great source of healthy fats, protein, and fiber, as well as iron, manganese, copper, and magnesium.

In addition, according to this article from verywellfit, coconut may improve cholesterol levels and heart health, decrease infections, lower a person’s risk of dementia, and even help you lose weight.

All great things, don’t you think?

How can I make things easier on myself next time?

Of course, most everything we do in life these days can be improved upon by watching YouTube videos.

I enjoyed watching this short-short wherein Saeng Douangdara easily extracts the coconut meat from a coconut by giving it a steam bath.

Then again, did you notice that he cut himself? OMG! So maybe I’m not doing so bad on my own after all?

What about you? Ever tried any of this coconut malarkey at home? Do share.

Check out more deliciously wonderful stories at Sharing Food. Like this one from Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages:

And this story by Elvie Lins: