speaking of coconuts

i just wanted to introduce you to the Sri Lankan way of handling coconuts. when i lived in Sri Lanka, coconuts were a major staple in my life (who am i kidding, they still are). besides the fact that our house was completely surrounded by coconut trees, we had an entire room in our kitchen that was dedicated to coconuts. it was literally called 'the coconut room.' in fact, we still call it that even though it is now filled with piles of old books that belonged to my beloved late grandfather.

anyway, coconuts would either fall or be plucked by our gardener from high atop the skinny, disproportioned trees that lined our gardens and then, their husks would be furiously pulled off by hitting them against some sort of sharp, metal rake-like instrument that was anchored into the ground. (i remember sitting on a bench in our expansive garden one day when i was little when i heard a large thud on the ground beside me. i looked down, and there was a perfect coconut just sitting there, waiting to be consumed. i picked it up and carried it into the house to show my parents. said parents, scared that i could have been hit by the falling coconut, proceeded to get mad at me for sitting under a coconut tree. this was silly - the garden is housed under a canopy of coconut trees and there is no real way to avoid them. this, however, did not deter my parents from yelling at me.) the de-husked coconuts would be placed in their designated room until it was time to use them. and then they were cut open, like this:

to get the succulent white meat out, we would use a fancy scraping tool, like this:

clearly, my house in canada is not surrounded by coconut trees and therefore, we don't really have the need for a coconut room, but every once in a while, we will go to Longo's and pick up a cute little coconut. we either use the meat just as it is:

or we extract coconut milk from it by soaking it in hot water and then squeezing it out. i'm not really sure how anyone else goes about scraping coconut. i honestly can't think of any other logical way to do it. and there really is no substitute for freshly grated coconut; it's so rich and plump and perfect and dried coconut just pales in comparison. i don't know what Sri Lankan food would be without the coconut. it is in virtually all of my favourite foods, in a variety of different forms from coconut oil to coconut vinegar to coconut milk. among my favourites: pani pol - thin, crepe-like pancakes filled with a mixture of fresh coconut and palm treacle; pol sambol - any combination of fresh coconut, salt, lime and fresh chilies (green chilies are my favourite); and kalu dodol - an interesting Sri Lankan sweet made with coconut milk, hakuru and cashew nuts. coconuts are just everywhere in Sri Lanka. we even use them as a conditioner for our hair and we use coconut husks for hanging orchids and other plants. so now you know a little bit about the life of a coconut in a Sri Lankan household. just in case you were ever wondering ;)