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Tell me this doesn't look appealing!
Okay. Forget everything you ever thought you knew about bad candy. Because this... this is the
breaking point. This is where children weep and grown men cower. This is the proverbial
"bottom of the barrel." Because it is my true belief that this is where it was gathered
from. The bottom of a barrel. "What is it?" you may ask yourself. I'll tell you what
it is. It's an insult. It's a slap in the face from Mexico. In selling you this candy, they have
disrespected you and your family. This... is "Pulp of Tamarind."
Garcia Magana = THE DEVIL
Tamarind is described by it's makers as being the "Fleshy Part of Frut." I don't know
exactly what "frut" is, and I can only hope that it isn't really covered in flesh, but
I can assure you of one thing. "Frut" was never meant to be ingested, even when ground
up in to a muddy, sticky, pulpy, highly viscous mass. But the muddy mystery doesn't end there.
Oh, no. As Ben puts it, "If the black, sticky, pulpy compound is indeed the "flesh of frut,"
then the hard bits can only be the 'bone of frut.'" Mixed up inside this sludge of sleuthdom
are rock hard chunks of unidentifiable origin, presumably the pits of "frut." Why these
pits were not removed during the Tamarind manufacturing process defies logic, since they ARE NOT
EDIBLE!
Does this look good to YOU?!?!
But I know that all YOU care about is how Ben and I suffered through our own Tamarind experiences.
And suffer we did. The smell and highly unattractive appearance of the pulp had Ben threatening
to vomit before we even started. It was a Sabroso experience all over
again. Standing at the same sink, I squished a dollop of Tamarind to the top of the severed sack,
and bit/licked an (un)healthy portion off. The sticky pulp's extreme sweetness caused my eyes to
water and my lips to pucker up in disgust. Before I could even think about spitting the pulp out,
it ensnared itself within my teeth and gums, thus assuring itself eventual deliverance into my
digestive system, where, like a virus, it would no doubt take control of my mind. Meanwhile, I
was busy trying to chew the hard chunks within the sludge, having mistaken them for something
edible. Fortunately, my animal subconscience was more aware of the eminent danger than I was,
and in an instinctual move of fight-or-flight, I somehow managed to spit the whole deal out into
the sink, where it lay in a festering lump.
It took us a full minute to wash mess down the drain. With the faucet on full blast.
Where we found our TamarindAddendum to review (9/1/00) - Reader Amanda Hall wrote to let us know about the following inscription she saw at the National Maritime Museum in England: "In Asia, people believed that the tamarind tree poisoned the air around it and that people who fell asleep under the tree would be dragged off to hell by demons."
"Well, shit," says Amanda. "That explains a lot."
Addendum to review (9/6/00) - The news just keeps rolling in. Reader Christa points out that the FDA considers tamarind unfit for human consumption, siting the following reason:
Reason: FILTHY
Section: 402(a)(3), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION
Charge: The article appears to consist in whole or in part
of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise
unfit for food.
Don't you people ever doubt us again.
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