By H.C.R., Samoa

Eat Coconuts

Wartime Suggestions for the Islands Kitchen

THE coconut contains a great deal more of value than is generally known. Not only does the kernel of the ripe nut yield a great quantity of oil, by rendering or pressing, but the nut in its varying stages between the “green” or drinking nut (often holding 3 or 4 pints of nourishing beverage) and the mature, or ripe nut, is made use of in the preparation of a great number of nourish ing foodstuffs, invalid dishes, and beverages.

Not only jam, but curd-cheese, coconut butter, coconut chips, mock-meat, creams, sauces, cakes and puddings, invalid-gruels, ice-cream, custards, etc., to say nothing of the long list of tasty and nutritive dishes both baked and boiled, which are daily consumed by the inhabitants native to the Pacific Islands, in some form or other, at every meal, are given by the coconut.

But there is still scope for a wider range of uses for the Popo and its numerous products. Relatively few of the white settlers in these Pacific Isles are aware that the coconut has other uses than for its “milk” as a beverage; and the “oil” for cooking, etc. Everyone knows that the husks “burn”, and that the “shells” make charcoal.

It has been suggested, and wisely so, that “large employers might encourage

their employees to use fresh coconuts as food (July, 1941, “PIM”.) But, actually, in the Pacific Islands, as elsewhere, a relatively small amount of Popo (or the mature nut) is consumed in the raw state. The reason of this is that the native prefers to see the expressed “cream” from the rasped nut, as this forms a more palatable combination with the taro, yam, tania, kumera, and the taamu rootsticks.

Even in the remote Gilberts, where one may read that “the native thrives on his diet of coconuts and fish, though he may often eat raw fish”, he will as a rule “cook his coconut-cream with the giant tubers of the pula’a”. This, of course, is done in the ordinary way—baked in the “umu”.

WHEN the cream expressed from the Popo (mature coconut) is gently heated over a fire, it forms into a solid, custard-like mass. If the cooking is continued, and the creamy-custard is stirred, evaporation takes place while the product resolves into a bland, white, coconut-oil, and a white curd-like sub stance. This curd is rich in sugar and in protein—one of the essential parts of food.

The coconut-curd may be either baked, or gently fried, to form a substance of most agreeable flavour. The product takes a nice brown colour; and, if pressed to remove the surplus of oil, the curd will be found to make up into several forms of savouries and sweets.

For instance: Take a couple of table spoons of the browned curd; two cupfuls of mashed taro, tania, kumera, or yam (or the Irish potato, if preferred); add a pinch of mixed herbs; season with salt and pepper; form into “croquettes”, and fry a golden brown colour. Serve with onion sauce. To this recipe may be added bacon or cheese, tomatoes, or. any kind of minced meat or fish.

The macaroon-like flavour of the coco nut-cream-curd, when baked or fried, lends itself splendidly to the preparation of many kinds of “lollies”, or sweetmeats.

It keeps well in jars; and will blend with peanuts, chufas, almonds, and walnuts, as a most economical butter.

Various Recipes

HERE is the Islands way of making “coconut jam”. Take three very young, green coconuts. Halve, or open, and, with a spoon, remove the tender, white pulp. (This soft, creamy-pulp is most delicious in a fruit salad.) It consists almost wholly of pure albumen, and is agreeably sweet. Put into a pan, over a small fire, add one large table-spoon of sugar, and boil this with a teaspoonfull of water, until it becomes a caramel brown. To this, add the pulp of the young coconut, and cook till it thickens.

Nourishing soups are prepared by cut ting into dice, pumpkins, papayas, onions and a few tomatoes (when available).

The cut vegetables are lightly fried to a medium brown colour. Boiling water is added to cover, seasoning to taste, and, lastly a spoonful of curry powder is stirred into the vegetables, and about half a teacup of coconut cream added just before serving. To this may be added, when cooking, any kind of meat, either raw or cooked. But, as a vegetarian dish, this coconut stew, or soup, is excellent.

Coconut cream, added to a prepared fish soup, is delicious. Even the bones, after filleting fish, may be boiled, to gether with the fish-heads, to form a most excellent soup. Strain off the liquor; add a chopped onion, pepper and salt to taste, rice enough to slightly thicken the soup, and, lastly, half a cup of coconut cream is added before serving. In the Islands, a tin of ordinary salmon very often enters the composition of this nutritious soup.

In place of fish, lobster, crab, or the

smaller shellfish often form the base of a soup. Native oysters, prawns, squid or cuttle-fish, and the various sizes of clam, make splendid stews and soups. Such soups will be found delicious if shredded taro is used to thicken —just being stirred in while boiling. An onion or shallots should be used, and, lastly, the most im portant ingredient is a cupful of coconut cream, blended in the stew or soup, before serving. (Add chopped watercress or parsley, when these are to hand.)

Curries

AS for curries—meat or fruit curries, as made in the Orient—nothing makes a curry so “really it” as does a half-cup of coconut-cream stirred into the prepared curry. Don’t bother about the “Bombay-Duck”, as long as you have on hand a bottle of your excellent home made mango, or papaya chutney. Curry is generally liked about three times in a week. In India, and in Fiji—every day.

Nothing beats a half meat, half fruit curry. It’s good to eat, and good for one’s health. Almost any kind of fruit may be used: Apples, fresh or dried; in the Is lands there are papayas, mangos and vis.

But diced vegetables, too, may form part of a curry in which some cold remains of a roast, or poultry, may be used to advantage.

If the meat content of a curry should be on the small side, then fry the diced vegetables to a light brown before using.

The use of onions and tomatoes affords a nice curry; but pumpkin, too, diced and fried, then “curried”, say with a slice of bacon (if to hand) makes it nice.

But these are not merely economical dishes to be used in wartime only; they form a basis to work on anywhere in the Islands, anytime.

Make a curry sauce of mashed, boiled mango; add a cup of coconut-cream, and pour this over some nice, lightly-boiled fish (not too small). Then you will have discovered something you will try again and again.

Sweets

SWEETS, too, when prepared with the rich cream pressed from a rasped or grated coconut, have a delicate flavour which is widely liked. For in stance, dice a ripe papaya; mash up a spoonful of the ripe pulp of the fruit with the juice of a large lemon; add this to the “dice”, add sliced ripe bananas, if you have them, and top off with a little coconut cream. Serve cool. Sweeten with sugar, if liked, or honey.

Make a fruit-salad of almost any ripe fruit in season and cool off. Pulp a half papaya, sweeten nicely, and add the juice of a lemon. This can be beaten up to form a nice flavoured syrup to cover the fruit salad. Serve with a little coconut-cream, in glasses, chilled.

Banana custard is easy to prepare, and the kiddies love this. Slice some ripe bananas; cover with boiling water, cook for three or four minutes; then add one heaped tablespoon of dry cassava starch or the arrowroot, to each pint of custard.

Boil till thickened, then add half a cup of coconut-cream. Serve either hot or cold.

No sugar.

Butter And Cheese

COCONUT-CURD cheese is made as follows: Put into a wide-mouthed

jar, on the cool side of the stove, the cream expressed from, say, eight ripe nuts. On several following days, add the cream from two more nuts —say, until the jar contains the expressed cream from fourteen nuts in all.

This will ferment, and the curd will rise to the top. Have ready a shallow box lined with cheesecloth. Now pour the curd, with as little of the whey as possible, into the box. Season with salt, to taste. Allow the whey to drain away, then put on top a flat board, which can be very lightly weighted, to com mence to press the curd cheese. Take care to catch and save the pure white oil which will run out from the mass. This oil is splendid for all cooking purposes, or may be used with a perfume, as a toilet, or hair oil. The cheese will be “set” in about two weeks. (This recipe from the late Judge Gurr.)

Coconut Butter

COCONUT butter is easy to make and answers in most ways as well as the imported product, except that the commercially-made butter (or shortening) is specially “hardened” by a secret trade process of oil hydrogenation. This process separates the hard, from the soft com ponents of coconut oil, and thus it may remain fairly solid, even in the tropics.

But the home-made product must be kept in an ice chest, if it is to be solid, like dairy butter. Nevertheless, this eco nomical and tasty product is well worth while making in small quantities for present use.

Take the cream expressed from, say, four ripe coconuts; put the cream, after straining carefully through a piece of thin calico, into a deep pan or vessel to “set” (just as in the case of cows’ milk).

But this must be done in the early morn ing, and the skimming done the same evening. If done at night, the cream and the “whey” will harden solid in the cold night air. Skim off the cream, without getting any of the clear, jelly-like whey into it, add salt to taste, and put aside to harden in a cool place, but preferably in an ice-box, or refrigerator The same process can be carried out in an ordinary butter churn, the centrifugal force separating the cream from the whey. Then, too, coconut butter is much improved by cooling the product down to a low degree of temperature. This has the effect of separating the olein, or “soft” oil, thus leaving the stearin, or harder fat, much more solid.

Coconut butter can be used for all cooking purposes, and for biscuits and cakes as a shortening. For the purpose of frying, this oil finds an enormous sale in both USA and in Europe. Home-made oil may be stored in bottles for future use; a “crown” cork is best.

Coconut Oil For Cooking

THE most rapid way of preparing coco nut oil for domestic purposes is as follows. Rasp up on a coconut grater, say twelve ripe nuts. Do this early in the morning; press out the cream, and pour into a very shallow pan. Put the pan in the full sun during the day, and, if not quite “oiled” by evening time, put the pan into a warm oven to finish. Pour off the oil from the curd, and bottle.

Another method: Place the freshly grated coconut, spread thinly, on a sheet of clean roofing iron. Tilt the iron so as to catch the oil, as it runs, into a pan, and let this stand in the full sun. When all the clear white oil has run out, strain and bottle. Both these methods yield a clear, water-white oil, with very little coconut-odour.

By the baking process, the resulting oil is unpleasantly strong in coconut odour, and so less desirable for cooking purposes.

Mr. Tula Banner, 21-years-old son of Mr. Peter Banner, of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd., Rarawai, Fiji, was drowned last month in the upper reaches of the Ba River. Young Banner was an expert swimmer, but it appeared that he suddenly was seized with cramps when swimming in about 20 ft. of water.

Pilot Officer A. Mewa, the first Indian member of the Royal NZ Air Force to gain a commission, is the son of the late Mr. Ramjan Mewa, who lived for many years in Suva, Fiji.