IT’S Earth Hour this Saturday (March 29). From 8.30pm to 9.30pm one is supposed to switch off all possible electrical appliances, sit in the dark, or at most with a candle, and ponder just what the conservation of our planet is all about. It is now a very international movement, and moment, so you won’t be alone – people around the world will be switching off and joining you in the darkness, so if you haven’t done it before, try it this year.
The important thing is that it’s not about saving electricity for just that one hour of the year, but to work out how you can help the natural environment throughout the year. This can be done in many ways, including saving electricity, but also by saving water, recycling, perhaps having a meat-free day every week or cutting back on other non-essential consumables. Whatever you do, however little, it all helps, and what’s wrong with an hour spent talking to friends and/or family by candlelight?
Do you remember my column on the pepperbark tree a couple of weeks ago? Well, I had a most interesting telephone call from a reader in Sea Park the other day, telling me about a very special tree she thought I should know about. It seems that her ancestors came over from India with other indentured labourers around 1860 and with them they must have brought some seeds of the tamarind tree. It’s clear that they or their offspring didn’t stay indentured forever, however, because they eventually bought a farm in Sea Park and, among other things, planted a tamarind tree. That was well over a hundred years ago, and that tree is still there, still healthy and still bearing fruit.
The tamarind is not indigenous to South Africa, but it was originally an African tree, specifically a north east African tree, where it still grows in Sudan. In a time long forgotten, seeds were taken to India, where the tamarind became so common that it was assumed that it was an Indian tree. It found its way back west to the Middle East, hence the Arabic name tamar (meaning date) and Hindi (meaning India) – tamarind. It also spread eastwards towards South East Asia, and finally of course Europe, and the Spanish took it across to the New World where it is now found throughout both North and South America. Today, the spice tamarind is universal, although it is still mainly produced in India (naturally), Thailand and Puerto Rico.
Apart from curries, of course, tamarind finds its way into just about anything that needs that unusual sweet and sour taste and it is to be found in refrigerators all over the world (including ours) in dark, sticky blocks of the semi-dried wall of the fruit of the tree.* It also, unsurprisingly, has many uses in traditional medicine.
Right, see you at Earth Hour on Saturday (actually, I won’t, because the lights will be off). Cheers!
*Culinary Herbs & Spices, Ben-Erik van Wyk, Briza, Pretoria, 2014.
