What is a Kudkuran?

It’s very memorable for me to see this kind of tool that is commonly seen in kitchens in our old house when I was small. Until now this device is still available in our house and still giving ample help everytime we want to cook some recipes that require coconut milk. 

We call this tool as “Kudkuran”. I guess most of you could also remember those times where motor-driven coconut grater was not yet invented. But our “Katutubo” (ancient pinoys) had already invented this kitchen tool (Kudkuran) to scrape the flesh of the coconut from its shell.

The traditional ‘kudkuran’ has a sharp-edged metal spur (mostly used metals are cast iron and stainless) and its body is shaped out of a piece of wood for the seat as the picture shows.

I heard a story from my mother when I was still a teenager that traditionally in ancient times of courtships in the Philippines, young guys (binata) who likes to marry a young lady (dalaga), at their courting stage, the parents of the female used to ask the young guy to do hard labors at home to see to it that his love to their daughter is genuine. One of the hard labors that they used to request to a young guy (suitor) was to scrape a coconut meat (but remember, it was about 10 coconuts to scrape at a time or maybe more). So if he could finish them, then he would have a chance to court their daughter. How lovely is that!

Nowadays, there are many motor-driven kudkuran that you can find in markets. Although they scrape the coconut meat very easy but the traditional kudkuran is still my choice as it represents how my grandfathers (or ka-lolo-lolohan) show their love to my grandmothers (lolas).

So in the Philippines, the main term for this is Kudkuran (tagalog), Kagudan (bicol), Igad or pagigadan (Ilocano).

If you know what is the term used to call this tool in your own dialect, please leave your comments here: