Coconuts

A main ingredient
Coconuts are a main ingredient in Indonesian cooking. They are grown all over Indonesia for use locally and for exporting to other countries.

Coconut trees
A coconut tree is a type of palm tree. Coconut palms grow in tropical countries, where the temperature is over 22ºC all year and there is plenty of rain. They can grow to over 30 metres in height and can live for over 100 years. The feather-like leaves, or palm fronds, grow out of the centre of a branchless trunk. Yellow or white flowers grow, and from them the fruit grows.

Young coconuts, with the remains of the flowers

The fruit
Coconuts are the fruit of the coconut palm, which produces about 100 each year. They grow in clusters among the leaves of the tree. Each coconut has a smooth brown rind. Under the rind is a 2-5 cm thick husk of brown fibres. The husk and the rind cover a brown woody shell that has three soft spots at one end. These are called 'eyes'. When we buy coconuts, the husk and rind have usually been removed.

The coconut seed is inside the shell. The seed is large: about 20-30 cm long and about 15-20 cm across. It consists of crisp white coconut meat covered by a brown skin. The centre of the seed is hollow, and is filled with a liquid called coconut milk.

The fruit takes about a year to ripen. Ripe coconuts fall from the tree, but on plantations they are generally cut every few months.

Reproduction
Coconut seeds drop to the ground, and the milk inside provides fresh water as the new plant grows and sprouts from the seed. Many coconut palms grow beside a river or the sea, and drop their seeds into the water. The seeds float in the water, often with the new shoot emerging, until they reach soil or a sandy beach where they can take root and grow into a tree.

Useful
Coconut palms are very useful trees. The wood is used in the construction of houses and bridges. The leaves are used to make thatched rooves, plaited to make house walls and sandals. The short fibres of the husk, called coir, are woven into mats, ropes and brooms.

Dried coconut meat left solid is called copra (say cope-ruh). The coconut shells are split open and dried in the sun or in ovens.Copra contains oil that is used in cooking and to make margarine, detergent, candles, cosmetics and soap. Copra is pressed to remove the oil, and the remains after that is made into feed for cattle or poultry.

Coconut is also shredded and dried and used in cooking.

Acknowledge this source in your bibliography like this:
A Trip to Indonesia (2001). [Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au

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updated 4 February, 2001