The ordinary tropical way of opening coco-nuts for table, indeed, is by
cutting off the top of the shell and rind in successive slices, at the
end where the three pores are situated, until you reach the level of the
water, which fills up the whole interior. The nutty part around the
inside of the shell is then extremely soft and jelly-like, so that it
can be readily eaten with a spoon; but as a matter of fact very few
people ever do eat the flesh at all. After their first few months in the
tropics, they lose the taste for this comparatively indigestible part,
and confine themselves entirely (like patients at a German spa) to
drinking the water. A young coco-nut is thus seen to consist, first of a
green outer skin, then of a fibrous coat, which afterwards becomes the
hair, and next of a harder shell which finally gets quite woody; while
inside all comes the actual seed or unripe nut itself. The office of the
coco-nut water is the deposition of the nutty part around the side of
the shell; it is, so to speak, the mother liquid, from which the harder
eatable portion is afterwards derived. This state is not uncommon in
embryo seeds. In a very young pea, for example, the inside is quite
watery, and only the outer skin is at all solid, as we have all observed
when green peas first come into season. But the special peculiarity of
the coco-nut consists in the fact that this liquid condition of the
interior continues even after the nut is ripe, and that is the really
curious point about the milk in the coco-nut which does actually need
accounting for.
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