Coconuts in Medieval Britain (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Coconuts in Medieval Britain (2015)

themarysue.com

29 pointswolfi110 comments

>Coconuts grew in their native Maldives, in India, and perhaps parts of western Africa and the Middle East

None of the countries mentioned have coconut as native, its originated from the Malay Archipelago (East Indies) area. The common name for coconut from Philippines to Hawaii across the Pacific islands is nyiur/niu, and most probably brought along to Polynesian islands by the early settlements who speaks Malayo-Polynesian or Austronesian languages.

Fun facts, coconut name is a misnomer and it's originated from the Portugese, one of the first European in contact with coconut who thought it's a form of nut but actually it belongs to drupe or stone fruit family [1]. Specifically coconut is from the palm family and its fruit is mainly the kernel. Oil palm has similar kernel fruit but it's native to Africa.

[1] Nightmare Fruit: How the Coconut Got Its Name.

https://medium.com/@sixtybolts/nightmare-fruit-how-the-cocon...

So like almonds, pecans, brazil nuts, and pistachios. None of them are nuts, all stone fruit.

Don't forget cashews.

Now, about berries. Bananas, yes. Strawberries, no. Melons, lemons, pumpkins, chili peppers, yes. Raspberries, juniper berries, mulberries, no. Eggplants, yes.

> “Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”

I think the author of the article missed that this punchline talks about the giant floating seed of a coastal species of plant, that spreads itself by drifting out into the open sea, following the sea currents and eventually finding new islands to colonize. In other words: that coconuts do, in fact, migrate.

That's a hard case to make given the author of this article wrote not long after that

   (They were also growing in western Central America, but had gotten there on their own, crossing the pacific like small, tasty boats without a swallow in sight.)

Random nitpick, but there is evidence that there was contact between Polynesians and South Americans before western colonization (the sweet potatoes here in New Zealand are of South American origin and the Polynesian words for sweet potato are cognates to South American ones). It looks like Polynesians were the ones who brought coconuts to South America, not coconuts randomly floating.

Yes it's a stretch to claim they came from a specific country... If you go to remote islands in Australia with nobody on them, there are coconut trees there. I highly doubt they were planted there by people. They are pretty good at surviving long ocean journeys and they can start growing above the ground, they don't even need to be planted. Probably the most hardy tree species that exists if you think about it. According to Claude, a coconut can survive 3 to 4 months at sea. They could have come from any beach.

Coconuts make for a cost-effective horse substitute during these economically trying times.

Back home in Camelot my trusty servant Patsy swears by them.

Not to pick nits, but the evidence of coconuts in England that are cited in this article date back only to around the 14th century, while traditions about a "King Arthur" generally describe him as reigning in the 5th to 6th centuries.

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