Ponnama amma glanced dismissively at my meagre tamarind harvest. “Looks like your neighbours made off with most of it, I don't know how you will make this last a year.” We now live in a rented house belonging to Ponnamma amma’s son and she came along with the house, living in a small thatched cottage alongside.
I put the tamarind up to dry on the terrace, in the hot February sun and it dried in two days and was ready to be de-shelled. I decided to take Ponnamma amma’s advice. At 83, she was an expert in farming and processing; she explained how I should hit the dry pods gently so that the brittle skin breaks into large pieces and can be removed easily. Then I had to dry the exposed pods.
After a couple of days of drying it was time to remove the seeds. This was the tough part. Ponnamma amma gave me a small hammer and strode into the neighbouring yard and, sifting through some stones, picked up a nice squarish one. She squatted down and pulled out what I thought was a nice succulent tamarind. “Your tree gives fibrous fruit, not too good is it ?” but made up by saying the fruit was a good combination of tartness and sweet. “Tap the fruit with just enough force to eject the seed but not crack it, so that seed bits are not left in the tamarind. That way your tamarind will not go bad even after two years,” she instructed.
It was easier said than done but eventually there was a pile of seedless pods, beautiful red in colour, giving out that heady sweet-tart fragrance. After another short round of drying the precious harvest was ready to be stored. Ponnamma amma brought me some sea salt crystals and deftly demonstrated how to pack the jadis with layers of tamarind with salt crystals in between.
Many years later, I still remember how Ponnamma amma taught a city bred woman about harvesting, processing and storing tamarind.
