COCONUT, COCUS NUCIFERA

Excerpts from Passmore, Jacki. 1991. The Encyclopedia of Asian Food and Cooking. Hearst Books, New York.

One of Asia's most valuable commodities, the coconut palm, which grows prolifically throughout tropical Asia, makes an important contribution to many aspects of life. Its towering trunk and wide leaf fronds provide building materials for housing and boats; its sap is fermented into potent wine and its nuts have manifold uses in cooking as well as yielding oils for soap making and other commercial uses. The outer husk of the coconut makes the fibrous coir that is improtant to the rope industyr.

To obtain the white meat of the nut from the coconut shell, it is first cracked open with a hammer or machete and then the meat is removed by prizing it away from the shell with a strong blade, or grating it on a coconut grater. The thin brown skin which is attached to the meat should be removed with a vegetable parer.

This resource is much more than a dictionary or encyclopedia. If you wish to know more about cuisines and associated recipes from individual countries, this would be an excellent resource.

Igoe, Robert S. 1983. Dictionary of Food Ingredients. Van Nostrand and Reinhold Company.

is the nut obtained from the coconut palm. It provides a source of coconut meat and coconut oil.

Ward, Artemas. 1923. The Encyclopedia of Food. New York, Number Fifty, Union Square.

is native to tropical South America. It is a palm that attains a height of a hundred feet. The nuts hang downward and the flesh of the nut is what is usually eaten. The milk in the coconut is drunk. If picked immature and green, there is a white, cream substance instead of the meat and milk.

Grimes, William. 2004. Eating Your Worlds. Oxford University Press.

is the large, oval, brown seed of a tropical palm, consisting of a hard shell lined with edible white flesh and containing a clear liquid. It grows inside a woody husk, surrounded by fiber.

Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.

Tropical palm, Cocos nucifera. The dried nut is copra, which contains 60-65% coconut oil. The residue after oil extraction is used for animal feed.
The hollow unripe nut contains a watery liquid known as coconut milk-which is gradually absorbed as the nut ripens. Composition of milk from the ripe nut: 1.4% solids, 0.2% protein, 3% carbohydrate (largely sucrose).
Analysis of mature kernel per 100g: 48-80g solids, 4 g protein, 35g fat, 11g carbonate, 4 g fiber, 375 kcal (1.57MJ), 2 mg Fe, traces of vitamin B1, vitamin B2 and nicotinic acid.

In Thailand this is called a Maprao and are used for coconut juice if young or coconut cream if mature. It is thought to be native to Indonesia or Malaysia although wide spread.

Coconuts are green when young and brown with the hard inner nut when ripe. The hard inner shell includes coconut milk surrounded by a bright, white, crunchy flesh.

The coconut is the large, one-seeded fruit of the coco palm (Cocos nucifera). The endosperm within the nut is the edible portion. A fibrous husk encloses the brown, hard-shelled nut which is usually 4 to 5 inches in diameter. The chemical composition of the edible portion of the coconut varies with the stage of development. The water from the immature coconuts have been shown to contain as much calcium as some fruits and vegetables, if not more. The phosphorus content is variable, and the iron content is negligible. Immature coconuts contain from 300 to 700 cubic centimeters of water. The meat begins to form when the nut is about six months old, that is, six months after the spathe has opened. As the meat develops, its water content gradually decreases, the fat and total ash increase, and the protein and sugar content show less marked changes. The meat of the coconuts contains a relatively large amount of crude fiber.

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