A Date With a Pod

The tamarind is a sort of bean. Or rather, a sort of bean pod.

It belongs to a subfamily of the Leguminaceae which has only one other well-known member, the carob. This makes perfect sense if you see it--Tamarindus indica has a big, flat pod much like a carob’s.

Where tamarind and carob differ from nearly every other edible legume (apart from being more like trees than shrubs) is in the fact that their edible part is the pod, not the seeds. The carob pod is sweet and vaguely chocolate-like, and the tamarind pod is appetizingly sour.

Tamarind is such a common ingredient in Indian cookery that Indian markets often sell it as ready-to-use tamarind paste, rather than whole pods. It shows up in more places than you might expect, though. It’s an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce and various other brownish, sour sauces such as Pickapeppa and Houses of Parliament.

In parts of the Middle East where lemons don’t grow, it’s used like lemon juice to flavor salads and stews. In Latin America, a sweetened beverage called tamarindo is common, and tamarind-flavored candies are as popular there as in Southeast Asia. In countries where the tree grows, tamarind leaves are sometimes eaten.

The name comes from the Arabic “tamr hindi,” which means Indian date, though nobody in his right mind thinks it looks like a date. In fact, it’s a little hard to know how the tamarind got that name, though there is a rare sweet variety which is eaten like a fruit. Probably it’s just the fact that it is brownish and dries like a date.