The Coconut Tree Today

Almost every part of the coconut is eaten in Singapore. Coconut milk, a liquid extracted from grated flesh of mature coconuts, is used in cooking nasi lemak and sayur lodeh. Gula melaka, made from boiling coconut flower sap, flavours many peranakan kueh, like ondeh ondeh . In hawker centres, one can easily buy a whole coconut to drink its refreshing coconut water. Beyond just its culinary uses, coconuts have floated alongside Singapore’s history for a long time.

Scientifically known as Cocos nucifera, the coconut is from the Arecaceae (Palmae) family.¹ “Cocos” comes from the Spanish and Portuguse “coco”, or grinning or grimacing face, which the three indents at the base of a coconut’s shell resemble.² It was taxonomized in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.³ In Singapore, it is called kelapa in Malay and ye zi (椰子) or ke ke ye zi (可可椰子) in Chinese.⁴ It is a solitary coastal palm that is fast-growing and spans up to 30m in height.⁵ The coconut is native to the Western Pacific, but is considered naturalised in Singapore, where it can grow without human intervention.⁶ While coconuts likely arrived in Singapore long before the 19th century, coconut cultivation intensified during this period, significantly altering physical and economic landscapes.

Taking Root: A Coastal Plantation Crop

Coconut was a popular plantation crop in the 19th century and brought a considerable amount of revenue for colonial Singapore. In 1849, coconuts had the second highest acreage—of 2,658—amongst Singapore’s agricultural produce.⁷ In the 1900s, a coconut cultivation was encouraged as Straits Settlement governmental policy mandated the inter-planting of ‘permanent’ crops, like coconut and rubber, for all land grants for pepper and gambier plantations.⁸ British resident John Crawfurd deemed the climate in Singapore to be well adapted for coconut plantations, which spurred the industry’s growth.⁹ The expansion of coconut plantations transformed the ecological landscape, devastating coastal forests along the southeast coast of Singapore.¹⁰

These coastal coconut plantations were mainly owned by European and Chinese business owners. Chinese businessmen like Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay and Chew Joo Chiat had plantations in Tanjong Katong and the modern-day Joo Chiat area.¹¹¹² European businessmen like Thomas Owen Crane had coconut estates in Geylang and Katong.¹³ In fact, Geylang used to be named Geylang Kelapa due to the sheer number of coconut palms planted in the area during the mid-19th century.¹⁴ The 1856 Commissioner of the police, Thomas Dunman also owned a large coconut plantation of 400 acres in Tanjong Pagar.¹⁵ The influence of coconut plantations and their wealthy owners is seen today in the form of street and neighbourhood names—like Crane Road, Joo Chiat, and Whampoa.

The coconut industry was a land-heavy one. In a 1914 article titled “The Cost of Making Copra”, Mr L. C. Brown, a retired Inspector of Coconut Plantations outlined the necessary acreage that a coconut plantation should have to be more profitable. He stated “in my opinion the only saving you can look for on an estate of 2,000 acres or more, compared with one of 500, lies in the coat per acre for supervision and buildings, for the general expense of fencing, draining, maintenance, weeding, picking and the manufacture of copra would practically remain the same. An estate of 5,000 acres, however, might cause the planter to produce sufficient to feed a factory to produce sufficient to feed a factory to turn out oil, coir, and even to make rope, from which sources additional profits might certainly be looked for.”¹⁶ Thus, coconut cultivation required a large amount of land to be successful and profitable.

Furthermore, it was immensely labour-intensive. Beyond “a European manager and assistant”, Brown recommended “a labour force of 180 to 200 coolies”, each working on five to six acres of land.¹⁷ Working in these plantations were people of all races – local Malay people, Chinese coolies, Indian labourers, and even Europeans who accepted low pay.¹⁸¹⁹ Beyond the rich plantation owners, these coconut plantations could only run through the hard work of the labourers involved.

In Singapore, harvested coconuts were also processed into products including copra, the dried kernel of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted, which became an attractive export around 1870.²⁰ In an oral history interview by Mr Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, he shared that he grew up near a copra factory “at River Valley Road near Ord Road” and that there was also a copra and coconut oil factory at Mohamed Sultan Road in the 1920s.²¹ He also shared that the owner was Chinese.²² At the time of the interview in 1983, both factories had closed down.²³

Coconut Oil: An Illuminating Utility

Before 1864, coconut oil was the sole provider of light in the streets of Singapore.²⁴ It was used in lamps, which were made up of a bowl or a tumbler partly filled with water and topped up with coconut oil.²⁵ A cloth or pith wick was fixed in a star-shaped piece of tin with cork supports.²⁶

So prevalent were these coconut oil lamps that the local people were amazed by the gas lamps unveiled at Queen Victoria’s birthday celebration. A letter written to England dated 30 May 1864 detailed their questions, such as “We don’t see the oil” and “Where is the wick?”²⁷ Indeed, coconut oil was integral in lighting up Singapore in a time before gas and electricity. Even after the advent of other forms of lighting, people once again turned to coconut oil lamps during the Japanese Occupation.²⁸

The use of coconut oil, however, was not without its dangers. On 19 August 1863, a coconut oil shop caught fire, razing down all 57 Chinese shops between North Bridge and Circular Roads.²⁹ Terrifyingly, the flames were 30 to 45 metres tall and burnt for four hours, until a high brick wall stopped the fire.³⁰ Whether for its role in lamps or for its destructive potential, coconut oil was clearly familiar to Singapore in the 19th century.

Grating Coconut Flesh: Processing Coconuts at Home

Zooming in from an industrial scale, families in Singapore had culinary tools to process a coconut as well. To make the tough coconut into its food derivatives, a coconut grater is needed. In Southeast Asia, the coconut grater, or kukur kelapa in Malay, is made up of a stool with a grater attached that extracts the coconut flesh from its shell.³¹³² The National Museum of Singapore’s collection has several such coconut graters from the 1950s and 60s. Generally, the graters are made up of a stool on which the user can either straddle or sit side-saddle, to ensure good leverage for grating.³³ Slightly convex rasps are also mounted on the wooden frame.³⁴ The user sits facing the rasp and rubs a split coconut on the blade to shave the white flesh.³⁵

One could use the grated coconut flesh directly, in foods like ondeh ondeh, kueh dadar, or kueh tutu.³⁶ Alternatively, coconut milk could be derived by adding water to the grated flesh to extract the milk. Coconut milk is an essential in Malay dishes such as nasi lemak, and rendang.³⁷

Breaking the Coconuts: A Hindu Marriage Tradition

Beyond their culinary value, coconuts also figure into the history of Singaporean family life through their use in Hindu marriage ceremonies. The details and personal meanings of this practice are recorded in a number of oral history interviews at the National Archives of Singapore.

In an 8 April 1982 interview, Mr. S. C. Somasundram described the coconut breaking ceremony during a wedding. He stated “by breaking the coconut, we show to the world, the coconut is not very clean outside, when you break it, it is clean and white, the water inside is the blessing of the God. So we want to tell them: ‘This is the world.’”³⁸ Mr. Somasundram also elaborated on the significance of the person breaking the coconut. They must be of “good appointment and status” and if the coconut breaks into half, it is considered a good omen.³⁹ He shared how he broke the coconut for his nephew’s wedding in 1957, which broke into three pieces. He revealed that the bride-groom’s family had suffered from disputes and misfortunes. Mr. Somasundram believed that the coconut ceremony was one “that shows what kind of life, what kind of prosperity, what kind of health” a person can have.⁴⁰

In a 12 September 1983 interview, Mr. Saravana Perumal said that the coconut breaking is symbolic of being “pure like a coconut” as the inside of a coconut is cleaner than its outer husk.⁴¹ He pointed out that traditionally five coconuts were broken in a wedding ceremony but this was no longer commonly practiced.⁴² Mr. Perumal adopted a more laissez faire attitude to the practice as his relatives “don’t follow certain rules and regulations made by the forefathers.”⁴³

Mrs. Guli Ramnani, a member of Singapore’s Sindhi community, shared another take on the coconut ceremony in her interview on 29 April 1985. In her experience, the groom would break a coconut after the main marriage ceremony.⁴⁴ While the failure to break the coconut made the groom look weak or unlucky, she was not as particular about the specificities of the break as Mr. Somasundram. For her community, what was important was that “the boy sees to it that he breaks it”—"doesn’t have to be in the half.”⁴⁵

These oral accounts of the coconut ceremonies of Mr. Somasundram, Mr. Perumal, and Mrs. Ramnani, show how integral coconuts are to Hindu traditions in Singapore, with unique and meaningful variations across families and communities.

Seeing the Whole Coconut

Coconuts are ubiquitous in Singapore today—they appear in everything from your Mr Coconut drink to your nasi lemak lunch. Beyond its culinary fame, the fruit has played a distinct role in shaping Singapore’s cultural and physical landscapes. Coconuts have influenced Singapore’s land use, lit up the streets, and been eaten and broken for good luck. When you inevitably pick up your next coconut-containing foodstuff, spare a thought for its intriguing history!

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