I enjoy reading household tips in hundred-year-old magazines and cookbooks. Often the advice is good, and has stood the test of time. However, occasionally an old tip leaves me scratching my head. Like this tip about how to store grated cocoanut. Is it really a tip when the author says that the advice given is guesswork, and that she does not really know how it is done?
And, by the way, what is currently considered the correct spelling for “cocoanut”? I tend to think that “cocoanut” is an archaic spelling, and that it is usually is now spelled “coconut,” but am not sure.
A Hundred Years Ago 
I giggle when I see the word spelled Cocoanut and pronounce it a silly way.
Until I read your comment, I hadn’t thought about how this word is not only spelled two ways, but is also pronounced two ways.
It’s so funny, sounds like someone thinking out loud rather than speaking from a place of knowledge – “You could try…” “Perhaps if you seal it air-tight…”
It’s more like two friends chatting over coffee. Not what what I’d expect from a magazine columnist answering a reader’s question.
That’s exactly right!
It does sound like someone thinking out loud. Mold is spelled differently too.
I wonder if “mould” was a typical spelling of that word in the U.S. a hundred years ago. Now I think of that as more of a British spelling.
Did you see the SNL skit with Nate Bargatze playing George Washington? You can google it. He explains how we as Americans are taking the ou out of words and our measurement system. It is the funniest skit I have ever seen on SNL. Mostly, I don’t like the direction SNL is going and Nate does “clean” comedy.
I just watched the skit. It’s really fun how he discusses our non-logical system of measurements.
While I was in school in the 70s we were told we had to learn the metric system as the US was switching over to it. Still waiting.
I have similar memories from my childhood of being told that the US was switching to metric.
How common was freshly grated coconut then?
I can answer my own question now! It was very common in 1924! Grocers advertised it, there were tips on how to best open a fresh cocoanut, a machine that would make grating fresh cocoanut easier, and airtight tinned containers of freshly shredded cocoanut were advertised.
When I was a child, we used to make Chocolate-Covered Coconut Easter Eggs each year. We would always start with a whole coconut and grate it. My sense is that making these eggs had been a family tradition for many years. I actually did a post with a recipe for them back in the years when I was posting my grandmother’s diary (and more focused on family foods and not on whether the recipes were exactly a hundred years old).
https://ahundredyearsago.com/2013/03/22/old-fashioned-chocolate-covered-coconut-egg-recipe/
Maybe other families made similar recipes back then.
My mother would have loved these–she loved coconut, coconut candy, coconut pie, etc. I just went back and read your story–thanks for the link! The eggs were certainly pretty.
My dad grew up poor and he had a friend in high school who came from money. He was amazed at the taste of fresh coconut! Now it comes frozen or dried…
I’ve never seen coconut spelled that other way. How interesting. We used to have fresh coconut when we were kids; dad used to smash it open with a hammer and then we chewed on bits of it – for days!
sherry
“…advice given is guesswork” how fun is that?
I agree with you, on the coconut spelling.
Thanks for the smiles today. 🌞