How to Open a Coconut

 

Before coming here four months ago, one of the staples in my diet was young coconut, both the refreshing water and the soft, filling coconut meat. Young coconut water and young coconut meat has been so helpful to me in the past when I was working hard at rebuilding my health, so naturally, I have really tried to search them out. 

I thought being in a much warmer climate it would be easy to find fresh young coconuts here, but I was wrong. I can't find them, at least at a decent price, anywhere. 

So I was elated when the proprietor of a fruit stand told me that he could get them. Well, I am sorry to say that this is not a young coconut. True, it's not a fully mature coconut - the ones with dark brown husks. But it's definitely not a young coconut (the kind you may find with off-white pointy tops). I guess it's an adolescent coconut.

This is how I open the hard coconuts, both mature and almost mature. After, the coconut meat may be sliced with a vegetable peeler or shredded. It's yummy and very filling.