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Constance L. Kirker and Mary Newman
Coconut: A Global History
Reaktion Books: 2022
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To see coconut farms in Taiwan, you have to travel to the southern parts of the island. Unbeknown to many northern Taiwanese, let alone foreigners, coconuts have been farmed in the tropical regions of Taiwan for a long time. A 1717 account of the historical county of Zhuluo, which at that time covered the northern two-thirds of the island, describes the anatomy of the coconut fruit and quotes the seventeenth-century Chinese writer Shen Guangwen’s poem on the versatile palm. Indigenous Taiwanese people, Shen wrote, knew how to make coconut oil, and locals would buy it to light their lamps when poor harvests deprived them of sesame oil. The account goes on to mention that coconut shells in Taiwan, being thin, were sustainable only for serving as dippers, and could not compare with those found in China’s southernmost province, Hainan.

Growing up in Taipei, I found that coconut was almost never used in Taiwanese cuisine, which is a mélange of locally inflected Chinese, Japanese and indigenous influences. Rarely did I come across anything like a coconutty Thai massaman curry or fish and chips deep-fried in coconut oil. Apparently, the latter was available in nineteenth-century England, where soap manufacturers started to use coconut oil to produce this quintessentially British dish.

• Tags: Brandon C. Yen, Constance L. Kirker, Issue 28, Mary Newman, Taiwan