A 1948 article in the journal “Economic Botany” referred to the coconut palm as “Mankind’s Greatest Provider in the Tropics.” The article discussed the uses not only of coconut flesh but of the oil and fiber and sap. “The palm provides almost every want except clothing,” concluded author Oscar K Moore.

This was far from a new observation. Around 1900, Sarah Tyson Rorer compiled a cookbook to promote Dunham’s Coconut. In the preface she wrote that it furnished “not only nutritious and delicious food, but huts, mats, rope, combs, brooms, and even dishes” where it was grown. She wrote about some of its uses “entirely unknown to the average American housewife” such as coconut milk and cream, and its use as a “toilet article in winter, rubbed on skin at night” to prevent “chafing or chapping.”

Rorer was not introducing coconut to the American public. Since the 1700s, coconut, spelled with an a and sometimes a hypen as “cocoa-nut” was often listed in newspapers alongside other cargo including raisins, ginger, wool, cumin, cocheaneal, tamarinds, cordials, candies, and all other manner of goods imported from around the world. Occasionally it was advertised on its own, as in an 1848 listing in the Baltimore sun “cocoanuts, cocoanuts, just received” and touting their low prices.

One thing that historians and scientists have disagreed on is just where coconuts originally came from. It seems like the consensus now is that coconut palms originated in the Central Indo-Pacific. The wikipedia about their dispersal around the world is full of maps, genetic analysis, and lots of evidence of peoples long before Columbus traveling across vast oceans in small vessels, and bringing this important food source with them.

The usefulness of coconuts was well recognized and documented, from the water contained inside them to the oil that had household and cosmetic use, to the husk fibre’s many applications. But as fas as I can tell, these many uses never distracted from the fact that coconuts are delicious.

The 1963 “Maryland’s Way” cookbook contained three coconut recipes. A contemporary cake and pie recipe were included from two different members of the Hammond-Harwood House Association. A third recipe purported to be much older. The recipe is attributed to the “Mrs. Jacob Loockerman, Loockerman Book, 1835.”

If the Loockerman Book actually existed, I can’t find it in any archive. Whichever member of the Association owned it must have kept it in their private collection. Mrs. J. Reaney Kelly, the primary compiler of “Maryland’s Way,” admitted to an interviewer that she invented a “Miss Fanny’s Receipt Book” to avoid having her own name appear too often as a contributor. As far as I know this is the only mythical manuscript referenced, but since the recipes were updated some before printing, it is hard to tell.

“One Grated Cocoanut” doesn’t read like a recipe that’s been updated. From the spelling of “cocoanut” to the suggested flavorings of brandy or rose-water, to the very undefined nature of the dessert itself, the recipe is old or at least written to appear old.

Grated coconut gets tossed with old stale cake and then topped with meringue. I opted to use a real whole coconut instead of dried shredded coconut, with very oily results. But I love coconut so I did enjoy the greasy mess.

Mrs. Jacob Loockerman was probably Mary Harrison, born in 1774 to Col. Robert Harrison and Milcah Harrison on the Eastern Shore. According to findagrave, Mary’s brother Christopher was “the first Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, serving with Governor Jonathan Jennings.”

Mary’s husband Jacob Loockerman’s mother was a Goldsborough, one of the prominent families of early Maryland, mentioned in Frederick Douglass’ autobiography as neighbors of his enslaver Edward Lloyd: “… it may be stated that the estates adjoining to Col. Lloyd’s were owned and occupied by friends of his, who were as deeply interested as himself in maintaining the slave system in all its rigor. These were the Tilghmans, the Goldsboroughs, the Loockermans, the Pacas, the Skinners, Gibsons, and others of lesser affluence and standing.”

Jacob Loockerman served as a clerk of court of Talbot County, but left little historical record otherwise. He died in 1839 at 80. Mary died in 1840. The couple are buried near Easton.

Despite their wealth and prominence, that is all I could find about Mrs. Jacob Loockerman. I actually did a lot of research for this recipe, wrote most of an essay, and realized at some point I got turned around and researched and wrote about the wrong members of the Loockerman family. I’ll have to make one of those Loockermans’ recipes so I can recover that time. At least I had an excuse to enjoy some coconut, while making one of the most memorably named recipes in the “Maryland’s Way” cookbook.

Recipe:

‘One Grated Cocoanut’

• 0.5 Cups butter
• 0.5 Cups cake , stale sponge cake, crumbled fine
• 1 coconut, grated (about 1/2 pound)
• 1 coffee cup cream, rich milk or cream
• 1 Cup sugar
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract, or brandy or rose-water to your taste
• 6 egg

Toss cocoanut and cake crumbs together. Cream butter and sugar well, add the milk or cream. Beat eggs very light and stir them gradually into butter cream micture, in turn with cocoanut and crumbs. Stir very hard, and add vanilla or flavoring of your choice. Stir again, and put into a buttered dish and bake until set, 1/2 to 3/4 hour in a moderate oven. Three of the whites of eggs could be left out for a handsome meringue on top of the pudding, sprinkled with a little grated cocoanut to give the appearance of a snowflake. Most excellent.

From “Maryland’s Way by The Hammond-Harwood House Association (1963)”