The coconut (Cocos nucifera) is the large fibrous drupe of a tall tropical palm, its hard brown inner shell lined with a layer of dense, brilliant-white meat around a hollow of sweet, cloudy water. The flesh reads sweet, creamy, mildly nutty and unmistakably "coconut" — a soft, milky perfume that turns deeper, toastier and more caramelized the moment it is dried or browned in a pan. Grated, pressed into milk and cream, shaved, toasted or rendered to oil, it threads through the sweet and savoury cooking of the entire tropical belt, from Thai and South Indian curries to Caribbean rice and pan-tropical confectionery. Half food and half raw material, the palm that bears it has been called the "tree of life" across the Pacific and South and Southeast Asia.