Coconut Cures Everything—or Is It Cacao?

One afternoon, in the small town of Tortuguero, Costa Rica, our small band of travelers sat together on plastic chairs under a veranda alongside a small hotel and listened to Cloied Taylor tell stories as he cooked up his family’s recipe for coconut candy.

Cloied grew up in Tortuguero before it became a magnet for tourists who now come to see green sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand. His ancestors were escaped slaves who hid out in this out-of-the-way “backwater” that still can only be reached by boat or plane. He told us about his grandmother traveling five days via boat and foot and—I think it was donkeyback?—to reach the nearest actual town to purchase supplies.

For Cloied, coconut is a cure for everything. As he boiled down fresh mango juice in a well-used frying pan over an open flame, he told us how to cure joint inflammation with a mixture of coconut oil and turmeric. As he added shredded ginger to the juice, he talked about the health benefits of drinking coconut water. As he dumped shredded coconut into the pan, he told us about the benefits of coconut oil for the skin. As he stirred, he shared yet more ways that coconut would make you happier and healthier. As he spooned the finished candy onto fresh local leaves instead of plates, he told us about how important coconut is for the local economy.

By the time we finished enjoying our tasty snack, some of us expected he’d conclude the talk by trotting out his line of coconut products for sale—but that would be the American way, not the Costa Rican way. He had no products to sell. Instead, he was giving freely of his pura vida through the gifts of storytelling, laughter, and his grandmother’s candy recipe. He shared what he had received so abundantly from mother nature and the rich, ubiquitous coconut.

A couple days later, we visited the cacao farm run by Rodolfo Alvarado, whose family came to the Sarapiqui area of Costa Rica over a century ago. For him, cacao is the cure for everything—and he did have products to sell. Chocolate makes you happy because of the boost in serotonin. Cacao butter is great for the skin and for reducing inflammation. Cacao flavonoids help to reduce blood pressure.

His list went on…but I didn’t write it all down. Instead, I listened and thought about how people across the world and the centuries have used whatever they find in abundance around them. In the US today, so many of us think that something only has one use. But our ancestors across the world used every part of a plant or animal, from fibers to sinews and flowers to hooves. Nothing was wasted—and much more was cured through traditional remedies passed down by grandmothers like Cloied’s.

What knowledge, stories, recipes, and treasures were passed down in your family? What unexpected or untraditional treatment has helped or cured you?