THE EDITOR, Sir:
THANKS FOR putting back one of our past staple - coconut - into the limelight. Allow me to add a little "home brawta" to the new awakening.
In many parts of the world coconut was vital to the survival of many, before the hype to take it off the market. Several products are made and obtained from coconut. I grew up on coconut water and jelly, coconut drop cake and other sweets. In some countries, coconut is used to make sugar.
I remember at around age four my late mother came running to get me from under a coconut tree during a mild earthquake. This special tree was close to the house. It was short with boughs almost touching the ground. I got great pleasure from holding onto one of the boughs and swinging back and forth.
I must have been swinging during the brief earthquake since I never felt the least bit of a tremor. It was the tree under which my "navel string" was planted and so I felt it was my right to use it as a swing.
Back then, coconut was indeed part of our culture. Coconut milk was included in almost all of our dishes, ranging from soups, stews, rice and peas and even in my mother's coffee. She swore by it, comparing it to cow's or goat's milk. My mother wouldn't consider using any other oil but coconut oil and she made it at home. The oil made in the factory was called "press oil" and was considered less desirable than the home-made one.
When the oil was made in the three-legged black iron pot, a moist substance was left at the bottom of the pot, this was called "coconut custard" and it was a treat. There was an elderly relative (born at the end of black enslavement) who had a special recipe for making this custard into a treat. She added some of the local fresh spices with a dash of black pepper and stirred the contents until the oil had disappeared from the custard. This was finger-licking good, especially when served with warm roasted plantain.
Coconut oil was also used locally for hair dressing, as skin cream to camphorated oil and garlic oil for medicinal uses.
Oh coconut, oh coconut how much we've missed you!
I'd like to also thank the researcher at UWI Mona (whose name escapes me) for the excellent work she did a few years ago on coconut oil which put me back on the path of using the oil when I could find it.
By the way, my mother was two months shy of her 100th birthday when she died, without suffering from any cardiovascular diseases.
I am etc.,
DR. F.L. SPENCER-
STRACHAN
Medical Anthropologist
Kingston 10
