By The Author of The Simple Divine Truth Books

For Free Books Visit > thesimpledivinetruth.org < Published on July 10, 2011

Tamarind Tree & Fruit

Ball type Tamarind tree fruit is less common to any other kind. They are dark greenish colored until it becomes ripe. The one in the picture is fully ripe having golden yellow color, a perfect specimen of a typical ripe fruit. These fruits have very little pest problem and doesn’t need any chemicals to protect it. I haven’t seen any birds or any other insects which eats away the fruit. The size of a fairly large one could be 4 inches high and 3.5 to 4 inches diameter and weighs 250-300 Grams when it is fresh.

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It seems they are very much safe in its life span. The ripe ones falls down like Newton’s apple and the rest remain. The ripe fruit is the best crop. The other ones having greenish color is more of bitter taste to soft sour taste. These kind of tamarind are widely used by Kerala State people in India for making Fish-Curry; without tamarind, fish curry is simply hopeless, they say.

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This fruit is grown in plenty and the harvest becomes due in June-July when it is raining heavily in (Monsoon time) in Kerala State. If it is a ripe fruit, if you press between the head and the tail of the fruit, it will split open like a Pea-nut shell. The inside seeds are immersed in jelly like flesh. It is very tasty to consume, discard the seed just like you do with dates. These seeds can produce new trees that may take 10 – 12 years time to bear the fruit. Trees are also grafted and its fruit bearing period can be cut down to 3 – 4 years. Seeds are not used for any purposes to my knowledge. I used to consume a lot of such fruits, during its season but it never gave me any stomach complaints; to some people, things are not so pleasant.

During harvest, they shake down the branches, even the green fruits are pulled down along with the ripe ones. They are split in to two and then the inside seeds are separated. The fruit shell is kept for drying in the hot sun for about a week. During monsoon time when the sun is seldom seen, the drying is done by artificial heating.

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Tamarind dried in the sun gives excellent taste, compared to fruits dried under smoke and fire. Scientific methods are not used for drying. One reason is it is not economic, the other reason is, there are no large scale producers. Trees are grown here and there and the land owners seldom have more than one or two Tamarind trees. Drying the fruit in large scale is the biggest problem.

The cleaned up tamarind fruits are dried through a long process. When it is perfectly dried it behaves like sea shell, just hard as that. For preservation; the dried tamarind is mixed with common salt and also with some cooking oil to prevent forming of any fungus. This preserved tamarind should be exposed to sun heat or sun, once in a while, and in this way it can be preserved for several years. Fully dried tamarind will become jet black naturally and it will look like dried shrimp, shrunk altogether. The weight loss from the raw fruit to dried ones is immense. On the left is a tree trunk of a twenty five year old tamarind tree of my backyard. Its circumference is 54 inches, (137 Centimeters) I do not think the tree trunk have

o my knowledge these trees draw a lot of water for survival. They are

ery few leaves are shed from the trees near the canals, in summer;

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any timber value at all. The fallen down dry branches disintegrates in few days, I assume the main trunk also can be of same characteristics. Tvery commonly seen in back waters and canal sides. The propagation may be through the running water. Vwhere as you can expect heavy fall of leaves from the trees in other dry areas. These are capable of withstanding heavy summer by shedding the leaves even lowermost branches. I have not seen a dry tamarind tree anywhere, due to shortage of water. C

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ou can see the leaves are closely knit together leaving no sunlight to the

ne peculiarity is, nothing will grow beneath this tree, not even grass. The

Ybottom. Each branch could stretch up to 25 to 30 feet, as a result a well grown tree might cover 50 to 60 feet radius. Owater falling down through the tamarind leaves might contain some acid which would prevent the growth of any other plants.

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Tree branches spread out uniformly, like an umbrella skeleton. This particular tree in the picture is, more than fifty feet high and still growing continuously.

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The leaves are of dark green in color and very thick. The nerve systems of the leaves are not at all seen on the front side, but little on the rear as seen in the picture. They don’t have any special attractive beauty but you will never fail to recognize it as a leaf.

If you bite on the tamarind leaf, you can feel the same taste of the tamarind fruit itself in a mild form. Each leaf could be 4 to 4 ½ inches long and 2 to 2 ½ inches wide. In summer the leaves size could be smaller and during rainy season it could be larger. To my knowledge there are four kinds of tamarind, I am familiar with. The above type is the best among all the four. Even constant use of it never gives any stomach complaint; rather it refreshes the stomach condition. It looks like, as if there is some medicinal value in this kind of tamarind. I began to see this Base-ball type tamarind from my early childhood until now. I just love to see a perfect ripe fruit for its magnificent golden yellow color and the marvelous taste of the jell like portion inside. I do not think, there is any other fruit having identical striped grooves shape. Among many others, the Creator has done His marvelous handy work in this also.

Above is a dry branch of a tamarind tree which makes a very poor fire wood. It disintegrates after few days.

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Second kind of Tamarind widely cultivated in India and other countries are explained in:-- > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarind < > http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/09/ebr5.htm < They are the biggest tamarind trees and grow up to a hundred feet easily. Their timber may be one of the most heavy and hardest with the most beautiful grains. It is so tough to work on its timbers. Carpenters work on it when it is fresh otherwise the chisel will slip off or even break. It weighs nearly 55 Lbs / cubic foot; you can imagine how heavy it is!! Even termites will flee from this timber. Pyinkado wood (Iron wood) weighs 70 to 80 Lbs / Cubic foot may be the heaviest wood / cubic foot. Tamarind wood is used for different kinds of wooden hammers used by Indian carpenters.

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Tamarind Seeds are crushed and boiled and given to ox, as feed. (Ox=An adult castrated bull used to pull carts in India).

Branches are not very much straight but takes irregular shape.

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Foliages are closely knit

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Most of the seeds are more or less square with corners round off. They are 0.5 inch long, 0.4 -0.5 inch wide and up to 0.2 inch thick. The off-white seed itself is very hard so as its maroon colored outer shell; the whole seed weighs one gram or so.

Typical leaves structure of this tamarind. Leaves are small and thick.

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The Third Kind Tamarind On this third variety Tamarind the fruit grows mainly on the stem in an irregular pattern. You can see in the picture shown on the left side. A number of pictures of the same tree are shown, to have a better idea of this kind of tamarind. This tree is very fragile. If you hold any branch and put little pressure, it will break easily. Its leaves are extremely thin; even then it survives in the hot sun

The above picture is fairly grown tamarind. It could be double of this size. If you don’t make use of it when it is fully grown, it will start decaying and fall apart. People like this type of tamarind and make use of it at an early stage. Fully grown tamarind’s sour taste is severe and tongue piercing. These are used for curries and pickles. Tender ones are the best for pickle because it doesn’t have the severances of sour-taste. Just after the rainy season the fruit is grown abundantly and lasts through the summer. When the first set of fruits are fully grown the next set will sprouting.

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This process will continue until the end of the season. This fruit doesn’t have a solid flesh. If you just press one of the fruits, it will become paper thin.

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The Fourth Kind Tamarind I am hunting for the fourth kind and I haven’t found a tree to take some more pictures.

The tree and laves are identical to the one in the above picture of the third kind, but fruits are round and small about o.75 inches diameter and not more than that. It tastes exactly like the third kind tamarind. It has one solid seed which grows very seldom. Normally propagation is through seed, unless tissue culture is applied. Its botanical name is “OTAHEITE GOOSEBERRY” I think. Good for pickle and curries. This kind of tamarind may be used for other tamarind products.

Published on July 10, 2011

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