Who remembers the ‘sweet sweet’ wild fruit that children often compete to eat?

For children in the countryside, tamarind fruit is a popular snack but attached to many familiar memories.
The childhood of rural children rarely had expensive snacks, yet just a few wild fruits were enough to create many memorable memories. These are bunches of intestines, fish eggs, longan … growing along the way, the children are free to pick and sip. Simple, simple, but they have a very unique flavor. Speaking of which, surely many people remember the familiar clusters of tamarind that were attached to summer afternoons when they were young.

Tamarind, also known as acacia prickly, is a plant that lives in the tropics. (Illustration) It is not known when they appeared, but the shady rows of tamarind have become a familiar image of the Vietnamese countryside. The trunk is tall, coniferous and often grows wild, without needing to be nursed or fertilized. And the most attractive thing for the children is the swaying bunches of fruit at the top. Called tamarind, but this fruit grows all the way up. (Illustration) Although the water tamarind is divided into segments like normal sour tamarind, each fruit is bent into a strange curved circle. Water tamarind when young, the skin is green, flat and relatively hard. When it reaches maturity, it expands on both sides of the fruit body to reveal the white flesh and black seeds inside. But the most attractive is when they get old and turn pink and red, making all children crave. Tamarind water when ripe turns pinkish red and bends back into a ring. (Illustration) Picking tamarind is not easy, because the trunk has many thorns, so few dare to climb it. But the most “lucky” way is to throw stones to let them fall or wait until they fall, then pick them up and enjoy. They’re used to eating, so every time the fruit is ripe, they all stand under the tree “soup tamarind”. If you want to pick tamarind, you have to poke or throw stones to make the fruit fall. (Illustration) Although the layer of rice is a bit viscous, it has a very strange sweetness. There is no need to dip anything in salt and fish sauce, just chew on the white meat, wait for the aroma to spread slowly, very pleasing to the mouth. In addition, a little bit of flesh on the outside of the shell lingers in the throat, making the children want to eat again and again. The simple taste has gone into the carefree memories of many people. (Illustration) No one can resist this delicious childhood taste. (Illustration) Currently, tamarind does not seem to appear much even in the countryside. That’s why people sometimes forget the familiar food of that time, but every time they recall the image of tamarind swaying “inviting” so provocatively that all the children have to make a fuss, it’s like childhood rushing back. Such small joys are such a dear part of rural children.