Tamarind
Tamarindus indica
Fabaceae
Tropical Africa; so long cultivated in India that its name — Arabic "tamr hindi", the Indian date — assumes it is Indian
13.0000° N, 30.0000° E · Sudan and the Sahel
19.0000° S, 47.0000° E · Madagascar
16.0000° N, 77.5000° E · Deccan, India
A large, long-lived evergreen tree, 15–25 m, with a wide, dense crown, small feathery leaves and curved brown pods 8–15 cm long. Inside the brittle shell is a sticky, sour brown pulp around hard, shiny seeds. The pulp — chintapandu — is the souring agent of the Telugu kitchen: in pappu, pulusu, rasam, pachadi and tamarind rice. Tender leaves (chinta chiguru) and young green pods are also cooked in season.
How it grows
Tamarind grows wild and planted across the Deccan, along roads and around villages, and needs nothing once established: it tolerates drought, poor soil and neglect, and stands for two hundred years. It is grown from seed and takes seven to ten years to fruit; a grafted tree fruits in four or five. It flowers in April–June and the pods ripen slowly through the dry season, harvested in February–April when the shell turns brittle. A mature tree gives 150–250 kg of pods a year; the shade under it is famous, and nothing grows well there.
Grow at home
1. Tamarind is a tree for a farm or a large yard, not a pot — though it makes a good bonsai and a fine seedling in a bucket for a few years.
2. Soak seed from a fresh pod overnight, sow 2 cm deep; it sprouts in one to two weeks.
3. Plant out at one year, in full sun, with room — the crown spreads 10 m.
4. Water in the first two summers only.
5. Expect the first pods after seven years from seed. Plant it for the next generation.
Harvest
Pick or shake down pods in February–April when the shell is brittle and cracks under the thumb. Shell them, pull off the fibrous strings, and either leave the seed in (for a tamarind ball that keeps a year) or de-seed. Traditionally the pulp is salted and pressed into balls or slabs, sun-dried for a few days and stored in a clay pot; the darker it gets over the year, the better the cooks say it tastes. The tender leaf is picked in March, the new-flush season.
Lore
Every Telugu village had its tamarind tree — the meeting place, the shade for the panchayat, the tree children were told was full of ghosts at night (which kept them from climbing it in the dark). In the kitchen chintapandu is used so constantly that "pulupu" (sourness) means tamarind unless said otherwise. Elders use it as a mild laxative and give tamarind water for a heavy stomach; the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India records it as Amlika. Traditional uses, not clinical claims — see the Thrive entry.