Now it seems crazy that I should have picked out something so available as special, but then I had only seen coconuts in pictures of tropical beaches and wild lagoons. The coconut is special when thinking about Kerala. It is a resource that has sustained the country for millennia and is still locally important, although the market value of coconut products varies wildly and is generally low.
The food of the South relies heavily on coconut oil. The many fried snacks are prepared using coconut oil, which takes the place of the Northern clarified butter in traditional dishes. The palm tree has an important part to play in the reclamation of the backwater paddy fields. Palm trees are planted, along with bananas, along the clay bunds, helping to take the water out of the soil and to stabilise the boundaries. AS well as providing a crop, the precious land is enough to tether a cow or two.
There are two products which are all-important. The coir, which forms the basis of the coconut matting trade, experiencing a great resurgence with the demand for sustainable products, and which has always been in demand for rope, and toddy, the fermented palm wine which is drunk all over the South and wherever palm trees are found. The tourist on a houseboat ride is sometimes taken into a dank and noisome den to sample the toddy.
In "dry" Kerala, toddy drinking is sometimes seen as an embarrassing workman's habit, and there is no doubt that is adds to the total of alcohol-related problems. It persists, though, and provides employment for nearly a thousand in the skilled work of tapping the trees, and several thousand in the toddy shops. It is a treat to watch the tappers shin up the trees, a breath-holding circus act, as they are without any kind of safety rope and some of the trees are very tall. The sap of a cut bud is collected as it weeps into the jar during the day. By nightfall the sap has fermented in the heat and toddy is made, all by itself. Toddy collected from palms other than the coconut takes longer to mature.
Recent moves to make Kerala a dry state and to close the grudgingly licensed liquor shops led to plans to expand the toddy industry and to clean up the bars and shops which sold it.
Since announcing the ban on alcohol, which would have mant that only 20 five-star hotels would have been able to sell it, and none on Sundays, the government has faced challenges in the High Court which means that the state will stay damp, but not quite dry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-30544717
Seeing my coconuts on the trees has led me to an appreciation of the essential nature of the trees and their part in the life of South India
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