Coconuts are everywhere. If you walk into a grocery store pretty much anywhere in the United States, you’ll find a cornucopia of coconut products: coconut water, coconut oil, coconut macaroons, and, of course, husked coconuts themselves.

Most consumers spend little time thinking about where the coconuts in this “coco craze” come from. But according to a Samoan proverb, “The coconut is sweet, but it was husked with the teeth.”

For the Samoan farmers and workers of the early coconut industry, these sweet treats were a site of struggle against colonial rule and exploitative plantations. By launching cooperatives, Samoans proved themselves savvy participants in the expanding global coconut trade while seeking economic self-determination. Recalling that fraught history is a reminder of the importance of worker power in contemporary global supply chains—where many of the same inequalities persist.

Americans got their first taste of coconuts just over a century ago. In the mid-19th century, the U.S. Navy began eyeing the South Pacific islands of Samoa as a coaling station. Around the same time, British and French missionaries along with German traders opened the first trading stations in Samoa. They moved methodically to monopolize the import and export of goods essential to the Samoan economy, and by the late 19th century, coconuts and copra—the dried meat of the coconut—had become Samoa’s main export to Europe and the United States. There, the copra was processed into a variety of products, including high-quality soap, margarine, and even dynamite.

From the start, Samoans resisted the Euro-American monopoly of the lucrative copra trade. They quickly realized they were being cheated by outlanders. After weighing out copra at trading stations, Euro-American traders routinely paid Samoan producers 30-50% less than they should have.

In response, Samoans took out large lines of credit and endlessly deferred their payments, knowing that the lack of effective legal enforcement of debt defaults protected them from punishment. They also resorted to manipulating the quantity and quality of the copra they delivered to traders by soaking the copra in water or mixing in greener nuts of poorer quality.

The U.S. Navy established formal colonial rule over eastern Samoa in 1900. The next year, hoping to raise revenues and increase copra production, the cash-strapped naval administration introduced a copra tax. In the eyes of U.S. officials, requiring taxes to be paid in copra protected the “child-like” Samoans from exploitation by unscrupulous traders.

Samoans were slow to pay this new tax. Many Euro-American traders even tried to keep the Samoans from cutting copra to pay taxes rather than sell it to them for export. By 1902, Samoans still sold copra below market price, keeping the prices artificially low as long as the naval government used the copra taxes to finance its operations. “In some villages,” Governor Uriel Sebree noted, “the natives have already resolved to sell wholesale rather than individually, and thus get a higher price.”

In 1903, the naval administration cut out the pesky traders and took over the sale of copra. From then on, Samoan producers brought their copra to government-run stations and received a standard price per pound somewhat lower than the projected annual bid. This margin allowed the government to pay expenses such as transportation and wages for the stations’ clerks. After the year’s copra output was awarded to the highest bidder—generally an American or Australian firm—any remaining surplus was returned to Samoan family chiefs. But instead of cash, they received copra receipts that could only be used to purchase goods in official stores.

By and large, Samoans did not object to the U.S. government’s takeover of the copra trade, because it increased their profit margins. Just the year before, Samoan copra producers had founded their own copra cooperative. In an effort to outcompete foreign traders, cooperative members from the main island of Tutuila and the smaller Manuʻa Islands 75 miles to the east pooled production and distribution of copra.

For a few years, the producer cooperative worked well. The company operated stores in several villages across the islands and owned three motorboats to ship copra to Pago Pago for export to San Francisco. Most importantly, the cooperative protected Samoan copra production by adding a crucial distribution mechanism. But because it allowed its Samoan members to buy goods on credit, company debt continued to rise.

By 1907, rumors of embezzled funds and skyrocketing debt led the U.S. naval government to become a trustee of the company. Then, on the brink of World War I, U.S. officials determined that the cooperative had failed economically and should be shut down as soon as remaining debts were collected. As Governor C.D. Stearns summed up with characteristic condescension, “The natives are absolutely incapable of managing their own affairs in financial matters and it is believed that permitting them to establish co-operative stores and co-operative schooners has been a mistake.”

Yet what looked like failure to paternalistic U.S. officials in Pago had provided Samoans in Manuʻa with a much-needed way to pool resources and mitigate risk. For the moment, they refused to let the cooperative venture sink.

As it turned out, the cooperative did not survive much longer. In January 1915, a tropical cyclone devastated Manuʻa. Half of the 1,500 inhabitants of the islands had to be relocated because most of the food crops had been destroyed, along with the majority of the cooperative’s copra stock. It took several years for agricultural production in Manuʻa to recover, but the copra cooperative never did. By 1919, the former store of the cooperative had become a naval dispensary and wireless radio office. The following year, the Manuʻa Cooperative Company officially folded.

While the cooperative movement eventually collapsed under political coercion, it helped form the nucleus of a more sustained challenge to colonial rule in the 1920s. To protest Navy mismanagement, American Samoans organized a copra boycott and practically shut down the naval government, which depended on the taxes drawn from the sale of copra.

Faced with Euro-American coconut colonialism, Samoans resisted by holding on to their community-based farming practices and succeeded in protecting long-standing ways of life. At the same time, they adapted selectively to the new colonial world by founding cooperatives whose worker mutualism aimed for greater economic self-determination.

Remembering the deep colonial roots of coconuts—and many other products—on American shelves helps put current frustrations, whether about stocking speed or quality, in perspective. With colonized workers serving American consumers, early 20th-century coconut production in Samoa carried the seeds of today’s global division of labor. Then as now, American consumers should push for worker control over the means of production and distribution of the tropical fruits they have come to love.

The post How Samoans Resisted Coconut Colonialism appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Food can connect us to the earth, our community, and ourselves. But first, we need to open a space to listen to and be in exchange with the ingredients.

As a professional chef, I have spent years learning to do this with the plants I grow and cook with. This practice has profoundly changed the way I think about my work and the world around me.

Looking back, one of my most important teachers on this journey, in the kitchen and in life, was the tomato.

Growing up, I struggled with my relationship to this beautiful plant and its magic fruit, even as I found myself drawn to it. It was only after I learned how to truly listen to tomatoes and give them what they need to thrive, that I experienced the true magnificence, amazing flavors, and powerful energy they have to share with us all.

The first dish I ever learned how to make was salsa. I was 5 years old, and I can still remember picking the juicy tomatoes, serrano chilies, and fragrant cilantro from my parents’ garden in Ojai, the Southern California valley at the base of the Topatopa Mountains. I kept tasting the salsa over and over again, adding a little more chili, then a little more salt, then a little more lemon. Adjusting and experimenting with the balance of flavors until it tasted just how I wanted it: delicious.

But a tomato on its own? That grossed me out. Now I know that the culprit was store-bought tomatoes—pink, mealy, store-bought tomatoes. I still cringe when I think about their watery, bland flavor. The worst were the slices that sat goopy and soggy in my sandwich, waiting to be eaten in my lunchbox at school.

What I didn’t realize then was that these weren’t a proper reflection of the tomato family. They were the industrialized representatives. There are actually more than 10,000 types of tomatoes out there—way more than the two to three varieties you see in the average grocery store.

The revelation that there was a whole other world of tomatoes out there came to me when I went away to San Diego for college and started working at my first fine-dining restaurant, NINE-TEN. I’ll never forget the heirloom tomato salad on their menu. Who knew tomatoes came in so many colors and variations? I took my first bite, and the bright, sweet, sharp flavors of their tomatoes opened my eyes to what high-quality ingredients can do for a meal, and how limited my understanding of the plant had been up to that point.

After college, I returned to Ojai, where I got focused on growing my own food. With my mom as my mentor and advisor, I started to develop a deeper relationship with plants, and saw how they could thrive when they received the love and nutrients they needed.

The work thrilled me. Every morning, I woke up early to check on the land, inviting friends to come and garden with me. We planted all kinds of vegetables in the beautiful soil we created by composting our food and garden scraps.

Through gardening, I learned that all food needs good food and good vibes to flourish. The same can be said for humans. For years I hadn’t been taking my health as seriously as I should have, and it was around this time that I realized I needed to make some drastic changes myself if I wanted to feel strong and capable in my body and keep doing the things I loved—like surfing, playing in nature, and growing my garden.

At this point, I had been growing over 40 varieties of heirloom tomato plants. I had been so excited to see them fruit, and find out what it would be like to cook with them and how they would taste. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of chowing down on them, my chiropractor recommended that I take a break from eating plants from the nightshade family, as they can be inflammatory.

Author Evan Rilling. Photo by Natalie Karpushenko.

It was a total bummer to stop eating tomatoes after we’d come so far together, but by overindulging in them and then cutting them out of my diet, I actually became even closer to tomatoes. The experience taught me to listen to my body and find out how to develop a healthier relationship with the plant that worked for me. I can now eat tomatoes freely when it feels good for me to and know when to stop when I need to. I recommend this exact method to clients who really want to understand how food affects them. It’s true, I tell them, after you take some time away from an ingredient, try going all in if you truly want to understand how the food is affecting you. Even junk food: I dare you to eat a whole bag of Doritos and see how you feel! I bet you won’t be going back for seconds.

I am grateful to tomatoes for all of the gifts they’ve shared and the lessons they’ve taught me, and am honored to now share these teachings with you.

Here’s how anyone can connect to ingredients in a deeper way:

First, choose an ingredient that you feel called to and would like to build a stronger connection with.

Then place the ingredient in front of you. Look at it. What did you see?

Touch it. What did you feel?

Listen to it. What did you hear?

Smell it. How would you describe it?

Taste it. How would you describe the experience?

How have you worked in harmony with it?

How could you work in harmony with it?

These teachings will expand your abilities and awareness of what you eat.

Developing your own relationship with any plant or ingredient—whether you’re cooking, gardening, applying a wellness technique, or working with them for healing—can be powerful, not to mention fun.

But before you try this process, I invite you to take a moment, center yourself, and let yourself be open to the possibilities that may present themselves to you. Because by letting yourself truly connect and listen to a plant, you may find it has many lessons for you, just like the tomato has had for me.

The post Where I Go<span class="colon">:</span> My Teacher, the Tomato appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.