To All,
On 15 Sep 2015, Pepe, Maria, Mike, and I celebrated forty years of friendship by dining at El Oriental de Cuba, a Cuban restaurant in Jamaica Plain (see picture below). Pepe and I ordered mamey milkshakes (27 Aug 2015). To create the atmosphere of a third world country, Mike and Maria both ordered goat. After eating we walked down the street to a Crystal Fruit, where Pepe and I each bought two mameys so we could make more milkshakes at home. While Pepe and I were palpating the mameys and agonizing over which to buy, Maria spotted tamarinds, which I snapped up.
I bought a one pound box of sweet tamarinds for $4.99. (There are also tart tamarinds, which result if the fruit is picked when immature.) My tamarinds come from Thailand, and, according to the box, they are good until 11 May 2017 if stored at 36 degrees Fahrenheit. The box and fruit weighed 1.116 pounds. When I shook the tamarinds out of the box, the fruit alone weighed 0.976 pounds. So that you can feel good about this fruit, the box flap has a comforting statement: "We harvest tamarind from managed farms which do not destruct the national terra fauna and flaura."
Here are some tamarind pictures from the Internet that show the pod, the fruit inside the pod, and the seeds inside the fruit..
(Continued in Part 2)
