Notes on the Niog

Next to rice and bamboo in terms of local cultural significance in the area of native flora is perhaps the coconut.

Called niog, the coconut used to grow in profusion throughout the town, until residents chopped off their clumps of trees -- including coconut, anahaw, narra, mabolo and other native forest trees -- to give way to highly profitable onion farms.

Niog is, of course, regarded as the tree of life, as in the rest of the Philippines, for it has many uses.

It is, of course, foremost a food. The meat can be scooped out of the shell using a spoon and eaten as is, or scraped using a balikátkat and mixed in kanen (rice cakes) and salads, or grated using an igar or a manual iron grater with wooden support that one sits on.

The grated coconut is pressed twice to make gatá (gátañg, gátas), the extracted coconut 'milk' (actually juice) used in main dishes, rice cakes, and soupy desserts. In fact, almost all native rice cakes have either coconut meat or coconut milk. In local cooking, there is a distinction made between the first pressing of the coconut milk (the rich and creamy unaan a pespes or kakang gata in Tagalog) and the second one, which is much attenuated.

The coconut embryo is called pála. It is found inside a mature coconut fruit that is starting to grow a shoot. The kids often scramble for it to enjoy the soft, wet, spongy, sweetish outgrowth.

Coconut 'water' is called tabol, while coconut flower juice (actually sap) is called tuba. These are favorite drinks. Tuba may be fermented into vinegar or wine.

Depending on how it is prepared or cooked, the coconut gives off several distinct and strong flavors. The scraped meat is often candied, called bokáyo (bukayo, bocayo). There are a few of varieties of bocayo -- they may come in chewy balls drizzled with sesame seeds and may use white or brown sugar. The harder disc-shaped ones are called bocarillo.

Niog is also made into 'coco jam' or coconut milk jam called katiba. In Pangasinan in the '50s-'60s, if katiba or coco jam was cooked until almost solid, it became coconut candy, which was wrapped in rolled coupon bond. Old-timers say it was their version of chocolate, 'coconut chocolate.'

Coconut milk reduction is called ganusal, the curds that separate from the oil after cooking the coconut 'milk' under low fire for quite sometime.

Coconut oil is used for frying and sauteing.

Apungol or coconut pith (ubod ng niyog in Tagalog) is cut into strips and eaten as fresh lumpia or fried lumpia.

 

Grated coconut is also used to make the popular panaderia item pan de coco. 

Locals have particular terms to classify or categorize coconut. Amamareng is a dwarf variety of coconut bearing smaller-than-usual fruits. Macapuno is a small variety of coconut with thick, soft meat that is highly preferred in making coconut candies. Botayong is a tear-shaped, immature coconut that is bound to drop to the ground without reaching maturity, thus the idiomatic expression "manaalagar na napelag ya botayong" (waiting for a botayong to fall), to refer to an idler or lazybone, or "napelag la'y botayong," to mean someone is about to cry.

Coconut is also classified according to age. Buko is used just like in Tagalog: to refer to young coconut fruit in general, but there are other terms. Malamuteg (what Tagalogs call malauhog) is young coconut with soft, thin, and a bit slimy meat, and acidic 'water.' Kareket-ubet (literally 'very black-bottomed') refers to a mature coconut whose ubet (butt) shows a deep brown shell when the bottom part of the niog is lopped off. The coconut fruit is then considered to be bobokáyoén (the Tagalog equivalent is gumaan), or in the middle stage of development: still green on the outside but mature (i.e., thick and firm) enough to be used for bokáyo or candied coconut. Lalaraken is also used for really mature coconut, from which to extract the fragrant oil (larak or laná) for use as puyok (healing liniment or moisturizing lotion). Larak made on Holy Friday is supposed to have healing properties.

More recently, coconut that is best for fruit salad is described as isasalad. This is between the malamuteg and bobocayoen stages. The coconut water of this stage is also ideally sweet, no longer sour to the taste and to the stomach.

Buko juice is best enjoyed chilled, with scraped meat and some evaporated milk. Since it is a diuretic, buko water is often used to cure or relieve kidney ailments.

There are specific terms to refer to other parts of the the niog. A young, dried-up fallen coconut is called cocót, and it is often halved and used as firewood.

The coconut shell is called lapís, and it is used to make kitchen implements, handicrafts, and firewood. A big lapis that is polished, with the upper portion carefully cut so as to save it for use as cover, is used as inuman or even as an orinola -- it is called abaáb or ungot.

The huge coconut leaf frond is called bulunyog or palápa, and it is used to build a hut's roof and walls. Palapa, when used to light one's way at night, is called banoot. A makeshift enclosure made of coconut leaves and bamboo used for the wedding reception, for example, is called pala-pala. The leaves are also woven and stylized into palaspas or Palm Sunday wreaths. The coconut leaves' midribs are removed and the sticks are gathered together to make tingting or yard broom.

 

The fibrous netting that clings on base of the palapa or the fruit of the niog is called balanet, and it is used as scrub as well and for handicraft materials like purse. 

Halved coconut husks (called bunot) with the shell intact -- are used to make íkat (or bunot) or scrub for polishing floors. A bad haircut or hair style is often likened to a bunot.

Bunot may be used in many other ways: pierced with teken (thin bamboo pole) where chickens may roost at night up in the trees, as toilet paper of some sort, as rooting agent when grafting plants, as part of a trap to catch sibaweng (beetle) using crushed hot peppers as lure, and as flowering pots (with the coconut shell intact).

Coconut meat that has been grated and pressed for its milk is called kupag. It is used as animal feed.

The coconut trunk is used as post or lumber.

As the cliche goes, no part of the tree of life is thrown away. No part of local life is left 'untouched' by the coconut.

References: Dr. Leticia B. Ursua (coconut candy, bocarillo), Dr. Margarita R. Untalan (botayong and botayong idiom), Melchor Orpilla (abaáb/ungot), Oscar Ora (bunot uses; pala vs pala-pala), Perfecto Beltran (ginuyor)