The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-07-19
Cocoanut Water.

Cocoanut water i indeed o magnif-
cent institution. IL doesn't in the least
resemble that si,:Aly, strong favored
cocoanut milk that people in England
get out of the full ,rown nut. It is q
pure, clear, hmpid, colorless fluid, not
to be distinguished from water by the
eye, and with hard Y more than q sus-
piclon of nutty SAVIOR even to the palate.
You buy your green cocoanuts in the
lump once o week, q dozen for three
halfpence- e-three-halfpence Is the singu-
lar unit OF value throughout all the Brit
ish West Indies-aud you use them as
you want them They are knocked
down from the palm less than half ripe,
and sold husk and all for consumption
on the premises. When you open one
you take knife and slice through the
green fiber, shell included, the whole
being still tender enough to cut clean
across without difficulty. After slicing
off layer or two from the top, you come
upon the water, which you turn ont into
tumbler, and throw the rest of the nut
away. Newcomers often eat the pulp
with spoon, and II Is certainly pleas
ant and delicious enough, forming q
mere film of soft, jelly-ike lining round
the inside of the she'll. But cocoanut is
indigestible In any form, though less so
when young than In the dry state, and
old hands seldom taste the pulp at all;
for man must save his digestion in these
low latitudes IL he wishes 10 keep any
for his latter days. The ripe nuts are
only fit for making oil. To the English
world, no doubt, 1t seems shocking
waste to open q whole cocoanut merely
for the sake of drinking the juice; but
probably the small children hanging
about the yard always annex the empty
shells as their perquisite, and make
good meal, too, of the pulp. Nobody
| ever knows what becomes of waste
things in hot climate; it is no good
trying to keep them, and there are in
Vulnerable hangers-on the back regions
who can always find satisfactory use
for unconsidered tribes.
The water itself, however, Is univer-
sal beverage with all sober people. Even
when no ice can be had, as on the
mountains or in country estates, 1t keeps
deliciously cool and fresh within its own
thick green covering of shell and fiber.
Then it is naturally strained and filtered,
drawn up by the roots from the malri-
ous surface-drainage of the lagoons, but
purified by passing through all the ves-
sells and cells of the stem, so that it
makes at last q very valuable drink in q
country where all the wells are more or
less hideously polluted by neighboring
sewage. In this young stage it contains
but little of the material for forming the
pulp, and is only very slightly sweetish,
with . faint and agreeable flavor of the
cocoanut. Hence the youngest nuts are
the best; as the fruit ripens the fiber be-
comes stringier, the shell grows thicker,
the pulp hardens, and the water turns
into rather indigestible whitish milk.
Some mistaken people put in n spoonful
or two of rum, but this Is an error; rum
before lunch never did anybody good in
any climate, and least of all where most
people die of yellow fever or of highly
concentrated bilious attacks. The pure
water alone, with lump of ice In 1t,
can do nobody any harm; it contains q
small quantity of food, and 1t quenches
thirst better even than cold tea. In
fact, green cocoanuts are one of the very
few real luxuries of the West Indies.
The luscious fruits and delicious sweet
meats are, of course, the purest hum
bug; there are really no good tropical
fruits worth mentioning, save only those
that we have all known from childhood
upward at Covent Garden; but an ex-
ception must be made in favor of man.
goes and green cocoanuts.
Unfortunately, they don't easily bear
transportation; to eat them at their best
they should be opened within a week or
ten days of the time they are plucked
from the tree. Besides they would not
seem so good, no doubt, In any other
climate. 1t is their admirable adapta-
ton to the circumstances of the case
that makes them so delicious. You look
up from your bundle of green-taped pa
pers on the desk, over which you have
been fuming yourself bodily away in
steam, and you see that glass of cold,
natural water standing invitingly before
you, with its lump of ice bobbing gayly
up and down in the tumbler, Ike 3
glimpse of Europe out OF place. That
Is what gives cocoanut-water its pecu-
liar charm. Take it to London and Of
fer 1t to thirsty mortals at club, and
they would probably much prefer Apol-
linaris. In hot climates, however,
there Is only one thing to compete with
it, and that Is lemonade made from fresh
green lines, without sugar, about as re-
freshing and cooling drink as human
ingenuity ever invented. Unhappily,
the colonial world, as q rule, despises
these modest beverages, and mixes it
self large Jug of mainsheet every morn
ing instead. Mainsheet Is weak rum.
and-water, ready laid on in Q porous
earthenware vessel, evaporation from
the surface keeping it cool; and it seems
to derive its quantity expressive name
from the native habit of taking constant
pulls at it all day long, as q sort of uni
, versal stimulus or general prime motor
,, power to human action.-PGu Nal
! Gazette.