Title: Taste of Sampalok – Filipino Tamarind
Category: Full of life
Blog Entry: The Sampalok (Tamarind), a slow-growing, long-lived, massive tree reaches, under favorable conditions, a height of 80 or even 100 ft (24-30 m), and may attain a spread of 40 ft (12 m) and a trunk circumference of 25 ft (7.5 m).
This massive tree is highly wind-resistant, with strong, supple branches, gracefully drooping at the ends, and has dark-gray, rough, fissured bark. The mass of bright-green, fine, feathery foliage is composed of pinnate leaves, 3 to 6 in (7.5-15 cm) in length, each having 10 to 20 pairs of oblong leaflets 1/2 to 1 in (1.25-2.5 cm) long and 1/5 to 1/4 in (5-6 mm) wide, which fold at night. The leaves are normally evergreen but may be shed briefly in very dry areas during the hot season. Inconspicuous, inch-wide flowers, borne in small racemes, are 5-petalled (2 reduced to bristles), yellow with orange or red streaks. The flower buds are distinctly pink due to the outer color of the 4 sepals which are shed when the flower opens. The fruits, flattish, beanlike, irregularly curved and bulged pods, are borne in great abundance along the new branches and usually vary from 2 to 7 in long and from 3/4 to 1 1/4 in (2-3.2 cm) in diameter.
Exceptionally large Sampaloks have been found on individual trees.
The pods may be cinnamon-brown or grayish-brown externally and, at first, are tender-skinned with green, highly acid flesh and soft, whitish, under-developed seeds. As they mature, the pods fill out somewhat and the juicy, acidulous pulp turns brown or reddish-brown.
Thereafter, the skin becomes a brittle, easily-cracked shell and the pulp dehydrates naturally to a sticky paste enclosed by a few coarse strands of fiber extending lengthwise from the stalk. The 1 to 12 fully formed seeds are hard, glossy-brown, squarish in form, 1/8 to 1/2 in (1.1-1.25 cm) in diameter, and each is enclosed in a parchment like membrane.
Some Middle Eastern countries the juice is prepared as a drink by infusing the Sampalok pulp. It is also prepared as a paste, sauce and candy. In India it is an Ayuvedic herb medicine. Sampalok is actually native of Africa but it has migrated to most tropical countries. It is infamas in especially in the south and all over the Asian countries such as the Philippines. This fruit was a supplement for the diet of sailors for its acid and sugar content.
The pulp contains tartaric and other acids as well as sugard that break up into starches and pectrin. Here are some medical uses by other countries. *Use at your own risk, I am not a medical doctor.
1. Curative properties: - The whole tree has medicinal virtues. Its leaves are cooling, while the bark is caustic, a tonic and reduces fever. The fruit pulp is digestive, anti flatulent, cooling, laxative and antiseptic. Its seeds are also have an effect upon tissue which is severe rigidly.
2. Fever: - The pulp of Sampalok fruit is useful in treating fevers. Boil the pulp with the addition of a few dates, cloves, sugar, cardamom and a little camphor is effective in fevers.
3. Common cold: - Sampalok soup It is prepared by boiling a very dilute Sampalok water after seasoning a teaspoon of crushed black pepper in a pan. As one takes it, the nose and eyes, begin to water and the nasal blockage will be cleared.
4. Digestive disorders: - pulp of ripe Sampalok fruit is beneficial is the treatment of vomiting, flatulence and indigestion. It is also useful in constipation. Part of the pulp is prepared by softening it in water is particularly useful for loss of appetite and lack of inclination for food intake.
5. Dysentery: - powdered seeds of Sampalok taken in doses with an equal quantity of cumin and sugar twice or thrice a day, are also useful.
6. Burns: - the tender leaves of Sampalok tree are very useful in treating burns. The leaves are put into a pot, covered and slowly heated over the fire. The burnt leaves are finely powdered and sieved to remove any gritty particles. This is mixed in sesame oil and applied over the burnt part. The burn gets healed with in days. And it also helps to grow healthy, normal skin. The oil keeps the affected part well protected against moisture and entry of harmful germs.
7. Sore throat: - gargling the mouth with Sampalok water is beneficial in curing sore throat. The potion for gargling be prepared by boiling Sampalok in water. Sampalok pulp is widely used in culinary preparations particularly, in the Philippines.
Superstitions There are many superstitions related to this tree because of its age in other countries. In the Philippines you don’t eat sour Sampalok during the even or you will be plagued with nightmares. There is also a superstition that it is bad to sleep or to tie animals beneath a Sampalok tree, but this is probably due to the harmful affect the leaves have on fabrics in damp weather. In Africa some tribes believe this tree to be sacred.
Sampalok Candy
Ingredients 2 cup water 1 1/2 cup sugar 1 pinch salt 1 cup Pealed Brown (Mature) Sampalok Instructions Heat 2 cups of water in a small saucepan to simmering, and add one and halfcups of sugar slowly dissolving it, then simmering to thicken it to a smooth syrup. Add pinch of salt.
Set aside to cool. Shell and clean the Sampalok, and then leave them to soak in the sugar syrup for several hours before putting on a rack to dry. (Be careful some of the Sampalok has a hard ‘Stone’ in them…)
Sit back and enjoy your exotic Tropical Candy that you have grown yourself.
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Nipa Hut Gardens and Gifts
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