Number 19 - Eat Coconut

I have never had a particular affinity for coconut.  I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that coconut has no discernable taste.  In fact the only thing coconut has is a distinct texture.

Case in point: When I was a student at the University of Florida I was a waiter at my fraternity house.  That meant two things: (1) I ate dinner before the brothers and pledges every night and (2) I had unlimited access to anything on the menu before it reached the dining room tables.

So one evening I conducted a test to prove my theory that coconut lacks any distinguishing taste.  The dessert on that particular night was coconut cake, which is nothing more than vanilla cake topped with vanilla frosting sprinkled with coconut shavings.  Unbeknownst to everyone I substituted the shredded coconut with about 20 yards of dental floss (the waxed kind) I had cut into small ¼-inch strips.  I don’t have to tell you how many brothers or pledges noticed my switcheroo but I can tell you it was somewhere none and none.

OK, I may have misled you earlier about my feelings for coconut.  I actually hate the taste of coconut.  The exception, of course would be the coconut cream used in the creation of a Pina Colada.  I developed a fondness for Pina Coladas and other similar frou-frou drinks in my ‘Happy Hour Day’s’ of the early-to-mid ‘80’s: Amaretto Sours, Grasshoppers and White Russians immediately come to mind.  Of course those days are long gone, but it’s kind of reassuring to know that if I were to lose all my teeth and am forced to convert to a liquid diet I could survive with frou-frou drinks as one of my four major food groups.

Granted, coconuts have been portrayed rather glamorously on television for many years.  The seven castaways of the SS Minnow survived on little more than coconuts for three years in the mid-‘60’s.  Coconuts (along with white rice) have been the go-to source of nourishment for the cast of Survivor for more than a decade.  But try as I might, I just couldn’t get past the thought of knowingly or willingly putting food with no taste inside of my mouth. 

But that all changed a couple of days ago when a friend of the family showed up at our house bearing a gift: A yellow coconut cake from McClure’s Bakery in Gap, Pennsylvania.  The cake was made from an old Amish recipe and when the top of the cake plate was removed the sweet aroma immediately filled the room and transported me back to my Aunt Minerva’s kitchen over a half-decade ago as she leaned over to take one of her magnificent homemade vanilla cakes out of the oven (see earlier blog titled 'Number 12 – Create a Dessert').

As you might imagine, I simply HAD to have a bite of that cake to see if it could possibly—someway, somehow resemble the cake I hadn’t had for over 50 years.  What was I to do?!?  Well, for starters I spent a good 15 minutes or so with a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers trying my best to remove the white shreds of death littering an otherwise perfect creation.  While I didn’t get every last piece of coconut, I did manage to extract a composite 15 inches or so.

So with Gilligan whispering encouragement in my left ear and Jeff Probst in my right, I decided to give coconut a try and take a bite.      

And what a first bite it was!  JUST LIKE AUNT MINERVA’S!  The aroma wasn’t a tease; it was the real deal!   Before I knew it our family friend, my son Josh and I took a lot more bites and before we knew what hit us devoured about 45% of the cake.  The family friend accounted for about 5%, Josh maybe 15% and I imagine I was responsible for the remaining 25%.  The next night the family friend took us out for brick oven pizza, one of my favorites and I stopped two pieces shy of finishing a personal pan pizza so I would have room in my stomach for another piece or two of the cake when we returned from the restaurant.  The third day—the cake’s last day on earth—I ate what was left on the cake plate.  When all was said and done I had probably consumed the better part of an entire coconut over the course of those three days, not to mention essentially an entire cake as well. 

I ate coconut willingly and without incident.  I won’t do it again: I’m not pressing my luck.

The next time I run across a coconut cake, it might just possibly be laced with shreds of dental floss (the waxed kind). 

By the way, I lied earlier: I didn’t really cut 20 yards of dental floss into ¼-inch strips during college.  I was much too lazy for that back then.

I actually cut the dental floss into 3/8-inch strips.