Agua Tamarindo

Mexican Dessert

AGUA TAMARINDO

INGREDIENTS

8 cups water
1/2 cup tamarind syrup
1/4 cup confectionary sugar

PREPARATION

Use long wooden spoon to mix all ingredients in pitcher. Stir until sugar dissolves. This goes well served over ice.

TIDBITS

1) There are no weird facts about tamarinds.

2) Not even fun facts.

3) Tamarinds came India. Sailors carried them back on rest-infested vessels.

4) The rats often were so numerous and ravenous the sailors had to throw whole handful of tamarind pods at the rats.

5) Hence the popular nautical saying and anagram, “Tamarinds, I damn rats.”

6) Not all rats were pests. Some could be trained to race each other . Bosun Arthur Beans of the HMS Kidney could amuse for his ship mates with his trained rats.

7) Other seamen of the British Royal Navy trained their rats to do tricks, such as jumping through hoops.

8) However, Arthur’s trained rats could prove the Pythagorean Theorem and to waltz. Eventually, their fame spread so much that every Christmas Eve the Admiralty would witness a palindromic performance of Art’s Star Rats.

9) Or so I’ve heard.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.