My fellow edible plant nerd, Scott O. and I recently sampled a number of edible palm “coquitos” to see which ones were choicest, and which were merely stomachable. Our first word of warning is that all of the following nuts — Chilean wine palm, Licuri palm, Bolivian mountain coconut, and Quito palm — are not at all easy to crack. A hammer was necessary on the two latter; for the former two a heavy-duty pair of channel locks sufficed.
The choiceness of each coquito was directly related to its size, we discovered. P. torallyi was excitingly large but disappointed the palette. It was dry to the point of sticking in your throat unpleasantly. The Quito palm was similar although a bit more palatable.
The Jubaea nut was still sizable and actually very tasty, just like a little coconut, although still requiring tough molars to masticate its hardness. Little Syagrus coronata, was very soft and yummy, but tiny in size compared to it’s resilient shell. We imagined eating a bowl of them with milk like cereal — that would be sublime! — but the amount of work to crack that many nuts would make it an expensive meal. It is the caviar of coquitos, I suppose.
The next day we went on a Palm Tour of the Bay Area. At Project Artaud in San Francisco, a theater surrounded by various palm species, we sampled a mystery palm that wasn’t horrible but gradually irritated one’s throat and mouth. We also found a Brahea edulis loaded with unfortunately unripe dates.
Spitting out the mystery palm fruit at Theater Artaud in SF
Over at the Oakland Palmetum we found the large P. cocoides specimens and bunches of coquitos on the ground around it. We were getting hungry, so good thing we brought the hammer!
Up Strawberry Canyon we went next to browse UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. They’ve got a nice palm section and tropical house. Their palm labeled P. cocoides was actually more likely a mislabeled Parajubea sunkha. Silly botanists!
Photo op with a mislabeled Parajubea
All in all, another delicious food nerd odyssey!
March 17, 2011 at 4:39 am |
Yes, these are some hard to crack nuts! I recommend a hammer next time. See more comments on your post on the Cloudforest http://www.cloudforest.com/cafe/palms/edible-palm-tasting-t613.html.
BTW, nice blog. We need to add it to the blog roll on the Cloudforest.
March 22, 2011 at 4:00 pm |
Easy way to crack these open: 1. Wrap nut in towel 2. Hit bulge in towel with a hammer. That way they don’t fly everywhere.
Eating the J. chilensis coquitos and probably all the other ones can be made more “swallowable” by mixing them with dates and probably other fruits. Dates + Jubaea chilensis coquitos = winning combination!
Do you mind if I post this on palm talk?
May 3, 2011 at 10:15 pm |
Hey I live in the Bay Area where did you get the coquitos? I would love to try them as well. I grow bananas and I am starting to get interested in palms. Thanks.
May 4, 2011 at 10:51 pm |
[...] Re: Quito Yes they yield fruit. At least in my area they do. I even ran across a blog where some guys in my area picked them up off the ground in a park and ate them. I can not say if they will yield fruit other places, but I keep reading that they do well in the San Francisco area, the area I live in. Still we may never know about other places if people don't try. It will take some time but if they don't mind I don't either. Link to the blog An Edible Palm Tasting Fire Flower [...]