Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Put The Lime In The Coconut

C oconuts.   HA!  I bet you thought I was going to talk about chocolate!  Wrong!   Although, I suppose, if you broke down the word "coconut," you could probably come up with a chocolate angle - - "coco" (or "cocoa") "nut" - - Chocolate comes from cocoa nuts.    But, wait.  I digress.   Back to coconut.  A funny food.  Or drink.  Or weapon.  Or bowl.  Or ball.  Coconuts conjure up so much more than food.   For instance, I immediately think of a candle my children gave me.  Smells lovely.  And, it's housed in a coconut shell, which is really cool.   Someone gave my daughter a bank made from a coconut.  It had no money in it.  I guess that was her job.   She's fired.  That job will NOT go on her resume.   But the empty coconut bank - - so cute.  Coconuts - - a brand of shoes.    So versatile.   And coconut brings to my mind a childhood memory - -  the Helms Bakery truck.   It used to drive through our neighborhood and tempt us with the most delicious chocolate covered coconut patties.    Back to chocolate.   Food is just one big round circle (kind of like an open mouth).

And there are even songs about coconuts . . .  I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts or You put de lime in de coconut . . .        
I think of movies (Castaway) and TV shows (Survivor, Gilligans Island). 
But,  MOSTLY I think about . . . .
AND


Kind of pathetic, I think, that everything comes down to food for me.   

So, I guess the only question is:  is coconut a fruit, or a nut?  Or both? 

39 comments:

  1. LOL on the coconut. I agree on the smell, it reminds me so much of summer. You know I read something one time that said that the water in the coconut is close to human plasma. :)

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    1. Maybe that's why it's so good for you! The water, that is :)

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  2. I almost did coconut too... I have a lot of random coconut facts and stories because of living in India. I'm glad you took it up though.

    That question goes a little further because some people argue that it's a seed. I googled it once but never did come to any sort of conclusive answer.

    The most dramatic thing I found out about coconuts recently was their calorie count! I knew that it was high - but it was only when I saw that "one serving" is a single tablespoon that I realized how very fattening lol

    Sure is tasty though... and here we eat more than just the meat. Parts of the tree are consumable - and then there's germinated coconut which is really sort of weird.

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    1. a seed . . . i never thought of it as a seed :)

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  3. You forgot piña coladas, virgin of course. I went to Puerto Rico to wait for my visa to Venezuela. Lots of vendors lined the streets selling goodies they made on little habachis and drinks. Being on missionary budgets, my companion and I never bought anything, but it always smelled really good. When I finally got my visa, we splurged. We each bought some kind of meat thing and a virgin piṅa colada. The vendor thought we were weird for asking for a virgin drink, but he made up the concoction sin rum. It was garnished with a pineapple spear. Yum! The drink was virgin, but I think the spear may have been soaked in rum. We each took the first bite of our own and hum, what was that? I don't know, I need another bite. Hum, maybe it's rum. I don't know. I've never tasted rum before, except maybe extract in eggnog. There was nothing to do but eat the last bite and we still weren't sure if it was spiked or not. That's the first thing that pops into my mind with I think of coconut.

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    1. that is hilarious, Tammy. Ignorance is bliss - - and in this case, ignorance is REALLY bliss :)

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  4. I bought a coconut once. Why? I have no idea. They are so hard to open, even with a hammer. I didn't get to try the plasma, what with it being splattered all up the walls and everything, but the other stuff tasted good.

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    1. The thought of drinking plasma kind of grosses me out. I think I'll stick with calling it juice! By the way, sorry about your walls.

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  5. There's a coconut in my blog today as well. I actually despise the taste, but my parents had an awesome carved birdhouse made from one.

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  6. I think it's a seed. After all, it acts as the seed for the coconut tree. There are so many in Brazil! And the coconut water from the green coconut is actually quite good. (Don't tell anyone I admitted that.)
    It's also the closest thing to a mother's milk. (: So mothers who can't nurse for long, substitute coconut milk instead. It's really healthy.

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  7. I love coconut! Pie, cake, candy, it's all good. I recently made a coconut lime banana bread, it was heavenly! (Pintrest, of course.) And, of course it comes back to chocolate- chocolate and coconut are the best of friends!

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  8. Mmmm. Now you have me craving coconut cream pie!

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  9. Now I have that song stuck in my head. I used to have a coconut monkey bank but it broke :(

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    1. I thought my daughter's coconut bank was kind of creepy. It's still somewhere in the house, which thinking about it now kind of makes me cringe :)

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  10. Can't answer your question on the fruit/nut thing.I'm going with a nutty fruit. A nuit or frut, if you will. I can tell you, now I am hungry. Everything always comes back to food for me too:) (My first post "A" was about how curvy women rule. Bring on the pie!

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  11. Amen! Curvy women DO rule! That's a club I'd proudly join!

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  12. Your post made me laugh i cant wait to read more! I think coconut is a fruit?

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  13. Oh for a Helms Bakery truck! They made the rounds in our neighborhood, rarely stopping at our house. However, when we stayed at Grandpa and Auntie Anne's, she would take us out front when the Helms guy would come around, and let us pick out a doughnut, usually the gooier the better. This was such a cool post.

    And Judy, thanks for the clarifying question, over at my site. I just needed to do one tiny tweak.

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    1. It's nice that you and your Sis can relate to the Helms truck :). Man, I miss that !

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  14. I love coconut! Figures that coconut oil is rather bad for you. Mounds candy bars rock.

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    1. Jennifer, I never pay attention to calories or fat or any of that stuff! I probably should, but life is way more fun in my ignorance!!

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  15. There is a line in the movie "Zombieland" where a character explains why he doesn't like coconut...it's the texture, not the taste....I can relate!

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    1. Well, you can always pound a slot in one and save your pennies! Ha

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  16. This reminds me of moving to Florida as a child. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that we found coconuts just laying around. I felt like I was a true Floridian the first time I cracked open my own coconut.

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    1. I'm impressed by your strength, Jaime, in being able to crack open one!!

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  17. Ditto what Mark said about the Helms Bakery truck. Grandpa lived in South San Gabriel and we got to spend some time there in the summer. What a treat to make that truck stop!

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    1. I almost liked the helms truck more than the ice cream truck !

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  18. I love coconuts too! Coconut cake, coconut pie, even coconut on fruit! Just yum!! :) Love your theme:)

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    1. MiChelle - I love the smell of coconut! Well, and the taste of coconut cream pie!

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  19. Coconut cream pie is my ALL TIME favorite! Dang...now I want pie. :)

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  20. Fruit has seeds .. this is why a tomato is fruit not vegetable .. and I really dont like coconut at all in any form shape way nope

    "Botanically speaking, a coconut is a fibrous one-seeded drupe, also known as a dry drupe. However, when using loose definitions, the coconut can be all three: a fruit, a nut, and a seed." Courtesy of Everyday Mysteries

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  21. Yum! I LOVE coconut. I'm going to be thinking about your pie picture until I get my fix. :)

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  22. We like to drill a hole in the coconut, drain the milk and then fill the coconut with brandy, cork it and give them as Christmas gifts. It's really delicious!

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  23. Love coconuts and have some rather frightening stories--involving hand tools--about opening fresh ones.

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  24. I have never seen that bunny cake before. Now I want one!

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