Coconut

Coconut trees are palms that grow up to 30 metres high. Known as the 'tree of life' because of their huge variety of uses, they grow throughout the tropics.

Coconut-food
Coconut milk and cream is made by pouring boiling water over freshly grated meat and squeezing out the liquid.
It can be diluted with water to create different thicknesses for sweet and savoury dishes and baked products. It is particularly popular in South India and gives a unique and creamy texture to rice, chutneys and curries. Coconut milk and cream is sold in powdered and canned forms. In British shops it's most likely to be found in cans.Desiccated coconut is the washed, steamed, shredded and dried meat used in sweets, baking, savoury dishes and as snack food. The oil is used for cooking in India, and to make margarine, ice creams and sweets. Oil can be processed using fresh coconut or more often, by pressing dried coconut meat, known as copra. Ball copra is an Indian speciality produced by slow drying, de-husking and shelling of the whole nut. It is used to prepare sweets offered during religious and cultural events. Coconut water from the seed cavity is sweet, and is now commercially extracted and preserved as a drink.

Palm hearts and sap
As with many other palms, the heart is a delicacy. It is the tender, young apex at the top of the stem, also known also as palm cabbage. Coconut palms yield one of the heaviest palm hearts, which can weigh in at up to 12 kg. A sweet sap, known as toddy, or neera in India, is tapped from unopened flowering branches. To collect the sap, the base of the flowering branch is bashed with a mallet and a small slit is made in the skin covering the flowering branch. A container is placed beneath the slit to collect the fluid that oozes out. This can be boiled to give a rich palm sugar, known as jaggery or gur. Jaggery is fermented into an alcoholic wine which, in turn, can be distilled into a strong liquor called arak. Palm wine is produced as a by-product of palm vinegar.

Tamarind-Harvest and processing

Pods are harvested at different stages of ripeness according to how they are going to be used. Immature green fruits are usually harvested earlier for flavouring, and sweet, riper ones are harvested later. They are often gathered by shaking the tree and collecting the fruits that have fallen.
Both green and ripe fruits are sold whole or pulped in local markets, though sweet fruits tend to gain a higher price. Much of the national harvest goes to processing factories. Here the pulp is separated from the fibre and seed and mashed with salt. It is then packed into bags for sale. Sometimes the pulp is made into balls and sun dried for a week. These ready-to-go packages are sold in markets and shops.
Tamarind is often further processed into drinks, sweets or packaged into more convenient forms for export. In some parts of India, tamarind is made into a jelly by mixing with water and sieving. It is then compressed into moulds and can be cut like cheese when required.

Tamarind - production & trade

Tamarind has been described as one of the common and most important trees of India, where it is used widely in cooking. India is the world's top producer, exporting several thousands of tonnes of seed, seed powder and fruit pulp each year. Tamarind trees are often grown in gardens and along roadsides and are cultivated commercially in plantations. CultivationIndia is the only producer of tamarind on a commercial scale. A large part of India's production of tamarind is exported to West Asia, Europe and America, where it is used for food specialties like Worcestershire sauce. It is used extensively in Asian cooking and is often used to make juices, soups, chutneys and other savoury dishes.

The many tamarind cultivars are divided into two basic categories: sweet and sour. India mainly grows sour cultivars in orchard-like plantations. These are initially set up by planting seedlings out into fields. The trees grow very slowly and take a long time to mature. After perhaps 13 years, young trees begin to bear seed pods during the summer which may take about 8 months to ripen. The trees are long-lasting and may continue to produce fruits each season for up to 60 years.

Tamarind

Tamarind is the seed pods from the tamarind tree. It is widely used to provide a sweet and tart flavour to savoury meat and vegetable dishes and in drinks and deserts in South Asia. India is the top producer, growing tamarind in orchard-like plantations for domestic use and export.

Names Tamarind,
Family: Leguminosae, the pea and bean family.
The name tamarind derives from the Arabic 'tamr hindi' meaning 'date of India', and probably relates to its brown and sticky resemblance.
Tamarind is the sour fruit pod of a tall, semi-evergreen tree which grows widely in the tropics and particularly in India. Tamarind trees reach a height of 30 m and are topped with a crown of feathery foliage. Their grey bark clad trunks can grow up to 2 m in diameter.
Leaves - long and feathery. Each leaf is equally divided into many smaller, finely-cut leaflets.
Flowers - yellow and streaked with pink. They are shaped like small sweet peas and smell sweet. They dangle in small clusters from the ends of leafy twigs during March to May in India. Fruits - brown, fleshy pods that are fibrous, thick and sticky. They are sausage shaped and covered in faint fuzz, like a kiwi fruit. Inside they contain a sharp-tasting pulp and several flat shiny brown seeds. They are an important food used to provide a sour flavouring for drinks, sauces, curries, preserves and chutney. In India the pods are ripe for harvesting from April to June.