tree can have up to four bottles containing up to a gallon of jekaro hanging and waiting to be collected each morning. The tree will produce a similar quantity that must be collected in the evening. It is verv sweet and is usually mixed with water for drinking and very nutritious, especially after four to six hours at which point the yeast content is greatest. After this it begins to become noticeably alcoholic and at 26 hours when the fermentation process stops, it can be drunk as a wine. In its sweet, unfermented stage it has been used as a substitute for sother's milk. When available, it can be used as a sweetener in any or all of the traditional dishes. ‘when it is boiled down, it vields on an eight to one ratio a delicious syrup termed iekami which is used as a sweetener in drinking and also eaten with coconut at its various stages. It can be mixed and further cooked with coconut gratings to produce a type of coconut candy, much prized, called amitama. At around the 15th to L&8th month, the coconut begins to sprout. At this time, the inside of the nut turns gradually to a sweet apple-like, spongy substance called wou. A side product in copra making, it is eaten in the interior islands by those zathering the nuts. Then again eaten by those while husking. When the nuts are cracked, children flock to the area to scoop out the soft iou before the nuts are layed out under the sun. lou is sometimes crushed and mixed raw with jekaro and thickened with flour into a pudding--aikiou. Also it can be steamed or baked in a basket (iutur) or even while still in the nut (umum ilo lot). To the aikiou dish el is often added. Indeed it is through the el or famous ‘coconut milk" that the coconut can be seen as the central ingredient in all tradi- tional cooking. El is obtained by mixing the grated coconut or waini with a little water and squeezing. “uch of the oil and a great deal of flavor is thereby re- ~eased into solution--pure white in color. dish conceivable. When available, it El can, and often is, mixed into every is normally mixed into the rice on a daily = &. 38 | - es aia ee a ee ee Sasis at the rate of about one coconut per two cups of rice.