Palmiting

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of cutting and gathering the tender edible core, known as palm heart, from certain palm trees
2. Harvesting the soft inner shoot of a palm tree that is eaten as a vegetable
3. Collecting the pale, tender central stalk of palm trees for use as food

Etymology: Palmiting is the Brazilian Portuguese word "palmito" (palm heart, the tender edible core of certain palm trees) with the suffix "-ing", a word-forming ending borrowed into English from the Portuguese-speaking world. The base word "palmito" is itself a diminutive of Portuguese "palma", "palm", so the term points to the palm trees from which the food is taken. The practice is the reason the word matters. Harvesting palm hearts usually means felling the whole palm, which kills it, so the activity has been criticised for destroying slow-growing trees in the Atlantic Forest and other tropical forests. The English term appears mainly in environmental and trade writing, where it names the harvesting of wild palm hearts as opposed to cultivated ones.