How I Learned Grating Coconut Meat

The rustic peace of Lupi, the town where I grew up was always disturbed by frequent encounters between the military and the revolutionary army. Harassments, it was the how the men from the detachment called these moments of gunfire exchanges. The evening trains sometimes were flagged down by unidentified persons perhaps because a wounded comrade had to be transported someplace where there was a hospital. Those were times when we children were often cautioned by our parents never to talk to strangers and never to catch dragonflies and beetles up in the pine trees.

At night we would hear the hourly tolling of the curfew bells from the army encampment. The clanging always came with foreboding sense of uncertainty that loomed over the town and the villages nearby set upon rolling hills across the river. At the certain hours, the commander once warned, no one was allowed to go outdoors except certain key individuals, like father who was the town's train station master. But not even him was spared from the requisites. When walking home past the forbidden hours, he should always-and never, never forget to-light his path with a kerosene torch held a little over head level. No flashlights, the note in shorthand warned, only a bright kerosene torch held high. One afternoon, the Tagalog-speaking commander of the encampment sent someone to caution father to follow the procedure lest he be shot for mistaken identity.

The river itself was not always flowing with nonchalance. The stones, cuts of driftwood and the river bends were witnesses to a number of lifeless human bodies carried downstream by the water from creeks where I was sure those men once enjoyed bathing in our even had their thirst quenched and their worn out flesh and spirit refreshed. I would come with mother to bathe or wash clothes in the river and we did such when a number of other people were around to keep us company. We always went home ahead of everyone lest the dusk when the path was almost swallowed by darkness that hinted risk even when the roars of Tiyong Pindoy's rice mill were still there to appease anxious thoughts.

It was during these years when I learned mounting myself on the grating apparatus known to us Bikolanos as kudkudan. I learned it from an uncle, Mother's brother. In those times, we were not allowed to do the grating at night, and I didn't know why.

The kudkudan, a wooden device to which an iron wedge is attached to scrape and shred the coconut flesh out of the shell, is a basic device in every rural Bicolano home. The city-dwellers who depend on talipapas and satellite markets for their daily cooking needs had already resorted to the electric grater capable of shredding coconut in masterful speed.

As for us in the countryside, learning the manual process would begin with the proper mounting of one's body on the kudkudan so that doing the grating is done comfortably.

Uncle once held my hands to teach me how to hold and push the shell towards the wedge and rhythmically grate the flesh out of it. I earned a few scratches on my fingers during my first try. I began it with slow mechanical tries, in imitation of how it was done by the elder who at that time was like a Zen master sharing enlightenment with his apprentice. Synchronicity, he told me, was the key. The upward force should complement by the earthbound movement that would allow the actual grating-the contact between the flesh and the wedge-to take place. I took time learning the process.

Where to begin the grating was another thing. I was told I should start in the middle of the concave of the halved coconut. Grate it evenly so that no pits are made inside, and further grating would be a lot easier. When the middle part of was done, it was time to do the sides. My hands were taught control so as not to scrape even the hard shell.

Vic Nierva blogs at http://aponihandiong.blogspot.com/ and supports http://lupikontradam.tk/.

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