How to open a coconut

At the Maine Caucus, Chelsea Clinton gave an example of how Hillary is a problem solver. The Clintons had bought a coconut and were trying to break it open:

Chelsea allowed as how her father and she had gone outside, and thrown the coconut again and again onto the hard asphalt of the governor’s mansion’s driveway, hoping to make a dent. But the coconut, alas, refused to yield.

Finally, Hillary came outside with a hammer.

(see NYT op-ed by Jenny Finney Boylan).

What this reminded Boston Brahmin of was: few people really seem to know how to open a coconut. It should open in two neat halves, and it should not make your kitchen look like the site of a bomb blast. It's time for a lesson.

So, let's assume you have in your hand a coconut with the husk removed, which is what the Clintons seem to have had. It looks like a hard, bristly nut, bigger than a baseball. (If the husk is still on it, the coconut will look like a light football; you'll have to rip open the husk with a strong screwdriver and make the coconut bald first).

Step 1: One end is pointed; look for the three dark penny-size spots on the other end. These are the "eyes". Probe them with a pointed tool, like a small screwdriver or a corkscrew. One of the three will be soft. Punch a hole in it, making it as big as you can.

Step 2: Pour out the coconut water into a glass through the hole. The water should be delicious, otherwise the coconut may be old or spoiled.

Step 3: Wet the "equator" of the coconut (if the pointed end is a pole) with water. I just open a very narrow stream of water from the kitchen tap and slowly turn the coconut under it to wet the entire equator. Rub the equator with your finger to help the water to soften the shell. (This step is optional, but Boston Brahmin has always found that it helps.)

Step 4: Hold the coconut firmly in your palm. On a hard and strong surface, repeatedly strike the coconut along the equator, turning it slightly each time. I usually squat on my concrete porch; a driveway also works. Be firm, but you don't have to swing it like a baseball bat: keep rotating the coconut and striking it. The best spot to start with is the place where the natural "meridian" seam meets the equator. After a few cracks, it usually starts to split roughly along the equator. Then start to be more gentle. You don't want to pinch your skin into the opening cracks.

The above method produces two neat halves. As to how to scrape out the pulp, the best thing is the scraper traditionally used in South India, or the "gkra-dtai" used in Thailand. (See samples of tools at GourmetSleuth). But if you don't have that, you'll have to use a knife.

Now, there are web sites where people try to explain this, e.g., this one, but they try to punch out all three eyes, which is not worth the trouble. The soft eye is very easy to pierce, but the other two are much harder. And they make the same mistake that Hillary made, which is to try to smash it with a hammer. It produces messy smithereens. Very unprofessional.