There are about 50 coconut trees in my village garden and every few weeks along comes a nimble man who shins up the tall trunks with incredible dexterity and chucks down the ripe coconuts. These are then collected by a middleman and sold up the market chain to consumers.
Grated coconut is an essential heritage ingredient in Sri Lankan cooking and village families use a lot of nuts when preparing the daily meals.
After the last coconut plucking at home, we retained some of the coconuts for our own use. We deftly peeled them by jabbing the fibre husks on an upturned spike to remove the coconuts’ covering. Each hard-shelled coconut that was thus revealed was cracked open, broken into half and set out in the sun to dry. When the flesh had dried we prised it from the shells and laboriously chopped it into slices. The slices were then put out in the sun for a few more days to dry.
We sent these slices to the village grinding mill where they were squeezed and the liquid that was extracted yielded three bottles of cloudy oil. Since we never fertilise our coconut palms, this was authentic home-made organic coconut oil. It smelt delicious, like a hot cake fresh from the oven. At home we use it for cooking, and even as a hair tonic.
Guru’s Tip
Coconut oil is widely used in Sri Lanka for cooking. You can buy a bottle of it from local supermarkets to take home. There is even a category called “Extra Virgin Coconut Oil” which has been refined more times than home-made oil.
