There’s nothing that sums up the taste of the tropics as much as cool coconut milk and the wonderful flavour of white coconut. If you should find yourself feeling peckish while on a tropical island paradise, then you need to crack the method for opening a coconut to get at the delicious food inside. Here’s how:
1. First, pull off the hairy layer around the outside of the coconut with your fingers.
2. Look closely at the coconut. You will see three black spots, each the size of a small coin. These are the coconut’s weak spots. Push a sharp stick through two of these holes and hold the coconut over a container to let the milk drain out.
3. There is a line, called a ‘seam’, running between the top two black spots. Follow this to the middle of the coconut, then form an imaginary line around the fattest part of the middle.
4. Tap the coconut sharply with a rock all the way around this imaginary line. The coconut should soon break apart into two halves.
5. Once your coconut is open, you can carefully cut the white bits away from the shell. Check that they don’t smell sour or mouldy, and then pop them into your mouth.