Whoever first thought that coconuts were a good idea should be beaten unto death with a watermelon. Same for the becursed Muses of Rice Pudding and infused rum.

What are you referring to and, WHAT BROUGHT THIS ON?????

Ah, just fixing to make some coconut rice pudding, and coconut rum. Whole coconuts are a pain to work with. The punchline here is I've had the blasted things for at least two weeks, as I was originally planning to make the rum for my sister when she was home from school. I don't know if they go bad or not, or lose flavor, so it's possible they're no better than bagged coconut from the store.

OK. I went to the trouble of buying a whole coconut, heating it up in the oven, smacking it with a hammer, peeling the damn thing, and then carefully "shaving" pieces over green beans, according to some recipe in Epicurious. My BELOVED husband asked me, "Are you trying to poison me, or what?" Turns out that Dame Edna doesn't consider coconut, in any of its forms, edible. Who knew?

What can one do? BTW: The non-sweetened dried coconut you can get in Health Food Stores is tasteless. I really don't know what this stuff is for. However, the sweetened, bagged or canned, stuff is highly useful. Maybe more useful than fooling with a whole coconut. Maybe some of our more
"tropical" members can weigh in on this subject. Except, I don't think this whole thing belongs in "On a Whim . . . " Just sayin'.

I also used to wonder if fresh coconut was worth it, but I tried this recipe with both dried and with fresh coconut and there was quite a noticable difference.

In my somewhat limited experience, as long as the coconuts have not mildewed or totally dried out inside, they seem not too suffer too much of a decline in quality. Even if they've sat on your kitchen counter for three months.

If a coconut has gone bad, when you shake it you won't hear anything sloshing inside.

Even if it sloshes it still might not be fresh, but this is not hard to discern.

I use a hammer to whack the tip of a Phillips head screwdriver into the soft eye of the coconut. Yes, these are kitchen tools. Only one of the three eyes is soft. Upend it over a glass and let the water glug out. Goes faster if you also whack a hole into one of the hard eyes.

If it's no good, it smells rancid. If it smells good, it is good.

I wish we could get nice fresh young coconuts, these have softer shells and the meat is very soft. I love these.

A few days ago is was in a Super H (in Atlanta in this case) and found a cream colored coconut which was described as, logically enough, white coconut. It looked interesting--I figured if nothing else it would look great on the counter--food as kitchen decor.

Does anyone know anything more about this thing? I assume it can be treated like any ordinary coconut. It has lots of water inside, which seems good. Meanwhile it does indeed look great sitting on the counter.

If it looks like this, then what you've got is commonly called a 'young coconut'. You see them a lot in SE Asia, where they slice off a bit of the top and then you stick a straw in and drink the water inside (it's pretty refreshing). The meat is a bit more gelatinous than a brown, mature coconut. It's also a bit easier to get out of the shell. I saw an interesting recipe once where the meat was cut into "noodles" and used in a pad thai like dish (the meat does almost have a noodle-like texture).

I love those things. WF has them occasionally. Also, many SE Asian restaurants have young coconut juice as a drink, even if it isn't on the menu.

Go to a tropical beach. Get a coconut from one of the trees gently swaying in the breeze. Pry off the outer shell. Smash the coconut on a rock. Dip into the ocean. Enjoy. Repeat.

No, I know those things, and have had them myself---yes they're good, but they're just regular coconut with the hull cut off into the shape you see. What I have is actually a white coconut, like the normal thing you buy in the store which has rough fibers hanging off the sides and is brown, but this one is cream colored. If it were an egg, this would be a white egg in place of a brown egg. Maybe it's an albino.

I should add it's not shaped like a usual coconut, but is sort of squat, like a turnip upside down.

That's what I love about Super H. Always something new.

I happened to stop at the Giant in Alexandria on Rt 1 @Beacon Hill and saw a package of fresh coconut on the produce section. It was vacuumed sealed and looked the the entire contents of a coconut in 1/4" slices. Didn't see the price anywhere.

Grating fresh coconut really isn't that hard or labor intensive. You need a good coconut grater, other than that you split the coconut in half and grate-no need to bake smash chop etc. 15 minutes tops.

Interesting-- I had no idea there was such a thing as a coconut grater. Are you talking about one of the mechanical ones, or...?

I have to say there is truly no substitue for fresh coconut. I can only speak to chamorro (Guam) food, and in my family and all other self-respecting Chamorro households coconuts are grated with a Kumyu, a metal grater attached to a stool. This tool allows a person to grate the coconut in to small pieces for use in many dishes such as kelaguen manok. I have found them for sale at Phillipino stores in the area, most recently at Manila Oriental store in Bailey's Crossroads.


Here is a pic of a child sitting on a Kumyu grating delicious fresh coconut!




By the way, the easiest way to open a coconut is with the dull side of a meat cleaver. Rap it around the circumference....It should take no time at all!

Use the milk as part of a delicious rum drink that you can serve in the half-shell. Stir it up with some cut whole strips of the coconut flesh....kind of like the celery in a bloody mary. But be sure to save yourself many strips and chunks, because (always save the best for last) how else does one get the Nutella out of the jar?

As Ftranfa describes above, I use a Kumyu (pronouced "kum-joe"). It's a board with a flattened peice of metal attached that has sharpened teeth cut into it.