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The following recipe comes from a collection of recipes found in a manuscript journal located in the H. Furlong Baldwin Library at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. The manuscript is attributed to Ann Maria Morris and the date of 1824 is written on the inside cover. The recipe below is one of many from the manuscript that will be included in a book I am writing. The book will contain biographical information about Mrs. Morris , an annotated transcript of the entire manuscript as it was written , and a section of modern recipe adaptations (including this one!).
Cocoanut Pudding
1 lb. of cocoanut grated , 1 lb. sugar , 12 oz.’s of Butter beat to a cream. the whites of 16 eggs beat to a high froth. Wine glass of rose water , wine & Brandy.
About Coconut Coconut comes from Cocos nuclear (coconut palms) which are native to tropical areas of Asia.
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Coconut Palm (Florida Keys)
source: wikimedia commons |
The exact knowledge of how coconuts reached areas outside its native Asia is unclear. Dum , a type of palm coconut tree , is documented as a food source going back to ancient Egypt. Venetian trader Marco Polo (1254-1324) brought coconuts with him on his travels to serve as both food and drink. This may be one of the earliest documented accounts of the movement of coconuts outside of Asia. However , coconuts can float and may have traveled on their own to new and distant lands long before Polo took them to new lands.
There is further debate as to when coconuts reached the Americas. One theory is that the Spanish introduced coconuts to Puerto Rico; another theory claims that the Portuguese introduced them to Brazil in the 16th-century. While coconuts were being imported into North America by the middle of the nineteenth-century , if not earlier , it was not until the late nineteenth-century until coconut cultivation reached Florida. Anecdotally , Palm Beach , Florida supposedly received its name in 1878 when a vessel called Providencia bound from Havana to Europe washed ashore with its load of coconuts.
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25 April 1890 Los Angeles Herald
(source: wikimedia commons) |
Coconut in American Recipes Though coconuts may have not been cultivated in the USA until the late 19th century , they were available earlier to American cooks. Coconuts (or cocoanuts as they were often spelled in the 19th century cookery books) were widely used in North America as early as 1850 and possibly earlier. Nineteenth century recipes that use coconut exist for ice cream , cakes , puddings/custards , pies , cheesecakes , cookies , and creams. Here is a recipe from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book by Catherine Beecher (New York , 1850) for a cake with grated coconut:
Here are two more 19th century recipes that use coconut:
