The Art of Business

One Eyed Coconuts in Singapore

It’s impossible to say anything of importance about the coconut in just a few sentences, as there is more complexity to this fruit than any one person could ever know.  Its ability to provide sustenance is fairly common knowledge, and travel in Singapore will no doubt expose even the most uncurious minds and eyes to ways of using coconut in remarkable ways that have no doubt gone unconsidered for years, if not lifetimes.  But in the short time that I’ve been looking at the coconut and its many uses, beginning with what I learned in my all-too-brief travels in Singapore, I’ve discovered that there are worlds indeed contained in the husks of this amazing food.  I’m at a point where I’m not entirely sure I can even consider it a food, such is the depth of degrees of its many uses.

Again, as I’ve mentioned, the culinary uses are multiple, and in Singapore, most any of the remarkable seafood restaurants will make good use of it.  It seems to work well with all the tastes that are found here, from curries to seafood soups, to the splendid desserts that remind me of temblique, my favorite dish that was prepared by the family’s house chef, who always excited my child’s mind with stories of gods and goddesses of fire and water that she claimed to know in person.  Only now do I begin to understand a portion of what she was truly attempting to teach me, and I even harbor naive hope that she wished I would follow the path toward understanding what the food can do when properly cared for.

The mystical properties had gone unknown to me until I was in Singapore, and found myself having a stream of bad luck.  A local doctor, whose practice I do not remember, recommended to me that I would have to procure a one-eyed coconut, in order to turn my fortune around.  I assumed this was a mere superstition, and did nothing to find the necessary Ekakshi until I found myself with my back against a wall.  The details of this will have to go unwritten, but suffice to say, it did the trick, and only then did I start to pay attention.  Since then, I have found many other spectacular uses, where they are helpful not only to make a soup come to life, but also can predict a destiny, but that is something of a secret.