I've seen a 1732 Boston ms. recipe for cocoa-nut pudding. I would guess that
some were in the Atlantic cities in the mid-late 17th Century, since they
were supplying the Caribbean with cod, maize, pitch, and slaves by then.


--
-Mark H. Zanger
author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
Students
www.ethnicook.com
www.historycook.com



"ASmith1946" wrote in message
...
Recipes for coconut as well as almond macaroons were published in Eliza
Leslie's "Directions for Cookery" (1837). Several other recipes include
"cocoa-nut" as an ingredient so coconuts were available in Philadelphia by
this
time. It would surprise me if they were not widely available at a much
earlier
date, as they were readily available in the Caribbean.

Andy Smith

Al though some might disagree, I'd put the US (and Australian) coconut
macaroon as an late 19th/early 20th century "invention" to utilize the
newly available processed coconut from the South Seas trade, sort of a
small change adjunct to the coconut oil business (and long predated by
the
almond macaroon).

TMO