Do you like candy flavors that surprise your tastebuds? If so, then you might want to take a look at the Mexican candy known as Pulparindo. This candy, produced by De La Rosa, is made from the tamarind fruit pulp. Sugar, salt, and chili peppers are used to flavor this concoction and give it a tart, sweet, salty, and spicy flavor. If you like a little extra kick, it also comes in extra picante.
The Tamarind Fruit
The Spanish (and Portuguese) colonists introduced the tamarind fruit, from the Leguminous tree which is indigenous to Africa, to Mexico (and South America, to a lower degree) in the 1600s. It’s become a huge part of the local cuisine since. Interestingly, it also found its way into multiple cuisines across the world. For example, many Thai and Indian recipes are known to call for tamarind.
The fruit’s edible pulp has a fleshy and juicy consistency, and it is known to be quite acidulous in nature. This brown, or reddish-brown, fruit is full of sugar, tartaric acid, B vitamins, and (even with as unusual as it might be for fruit) calcium. The tamarind also found its way into Southeast Asia’s folk medicine, where the fruit was applied (as a poultice) to the forehead of fever victims, and it possesses laxative effects because of the large amounts of potassium bitartrate, malic acid, and tartaric acid. Taking that into consideration, even while the candy’s other ingredients might not yield bountiful health benefits, there are a lot of positives to the tamarindo flavor.
Making a Good Thing Better
The candy comes in a few different flavors: including mango, watermelon, tamarind fruit classic, etc. While it does have one to two percent iron in it, there are around sixty calories per serving (about one piece)—after all, we are talking about candy. Aside from that, there are around eleven grams of added sugar, two-hundred and ten grams of sodium, and thirteen carbohydrates in a serving.
In the end, for such a simple product, it does have quite the following. Aside from the fruit, chili, and salt, it only contains corn syrup and sodium benzoate. The Mexican candy definitely fits into the spicy and sweet flavor profile so many people love. These small pieces of chewy delight contain all those flavors wrapped up in it like Matryoshka doll. If that type of thing suits your fancy, then you can stroll right on down to your local Mexican shop or check out some of the top items available.
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