These fresh fruits are brought from the nearby hill station close to Madurai.This is used in making curries.The fruits are acidic and used in Indian Medicine to reduce Fat.I was told that the trees are tall and the flowers are showy.This is one of the dried export items to America from Kerala State(India)Can you identify ?
It looks like a slightly more ovate fruit variety of Garcinia cambogia aka Malabar tamarind. Could it be that?
This message was edited Sep 21, 2021 8:24 AM
You are 100% correct and I checked up my friend in Kerala. Thanks a lot. I am drying them in hot sun for few days and ship them to my daughter in CA.
I only know of this plant because several years ago I was looking at fish curry recipes. The one I used was from a magazine I subscribed to called Saveur. The recipe is available online and titled "Sri Lankan Fish Curry". It uses goraka (G. cambogia). Made a delicious stew but I substituted tamarind paste which I had on hand. Recipes for Kerala fish stew call G. cambogia "kodampuli". I looked up the tree to learn more about it thinking maybe it was also grown in S. Florida or the Caribbean.
Whenever I visit my daughter living in Fremont, CA. I buy 2 Kilos of குடம்புளி and she chewed the flakes like a sweet.It is like a black structure available in Madurai shops but this is the first time I saw the fresh fruits.For making fish curry we use only Tamarind which is 5 times less in price compared to Kodampuli.
Thank you
Jj
