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- Title:
- Coconut Soup
- Date Created:
- 2021-03-27
- Description:
- During the second colonial century of Filipinas, native cooking used ingredients found in the first century including those introduced recently from Mexico and China. Island native ingredients however were still popular. (Refer to #100philippinefood @felicepstamaria.) When Dampier had abandoned his pirate life and wrote his travel book he described different ways coconut milk was used in Asia. He recorded boiling fowl or any other sort of flesh in coconut milk to make a savoury broth. English seamen had learned from islanders to boil rice with coconut milk and therefore carried coconuts during voyages. By his era the greatest use of coconut was to make “Oyl both for illumination and for frying. The way to make the Oyl is to rasp the kernel, and steep it in fresh water; then boil it, and scum off the Oyl at the top as it rises: But the Nuts that make the Oyl ought to be a long time gathered, so as that the kernel may be turning soft and oily.” When potable water is unavailable, scarce, or being rationed the coconut has provided liquid for quenching thirst and cooking. Currently a new generation of coconut seedlings need to be planted to aid food security. While Pigafetta in 1521 during the first circumnavigation wrote about coconut water and coconut trees that live to be 100 years old, it seems a tree is most productive for only 30 years. Mama Sita Foundation president Clara Lapus drives home the point, “Many of our trees are now in menopause”. Coconut centenarians, like people, need successor generations.
- Subjects:
- Philippines -- History -- 1521-1896 Clara Lapus Coconut Coconut oil Cooking (Coconut) Antonio Pigafetta
- Exhibition:
- Dampier 1686
- Source:
- Photo of a coconut. By FSM.
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Coconut Soup", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll198.html