Tamarind. A sour-sweet fruit, sometimes known as the Indian date, used as a souring agent. It comes in long, dry brown pods which look almost like dried broad bean pods. Inside is a long, segmented fruit, like a long brown caterpillar. Each segment contains a hard, shiny black seed. As the pods dry the fruit becomes sweeter. A visitor from Mauritius suggested shaking the tamarind and, if you could hear that the fruit had detached and was rattling a little inside the pod, you would find that the fruit was sweet. All you need to do is to remove the pod and then chew the fruit, discarding the seeds. It is also available mashed and formed into a pulpy block or as a juice. In this form it is used like lemon juice.
Capers. The pickled flower buds of the white-flowering, low-growing caper bush which grows around the Mediterranean on rock faces exposed to the sun. They are usually pickled in vinegar or salt. They are particularly popular in sauces with fish but also served in other savoury dishes.
Black peppercorns, the fruit of a perennial vine with large leaves and white flowers. Green peppercorns are the unripe fruits picked early and pickled. Black peppercorns are picked just before they ripen and white peppercorns are the ripe, black peppercorns with the black skin flaked off. They are best kept whole and ground when required. Historically, pepper was one of the world's most important spices. Columbus sailed West, not East, in search of pepper in the East Indies. Instead he found the Americas and allspice.
Nigella. The small, black, bitter seeds of a relative of "love-in-a-mist". Nigella is often incorrectly called wild onion seed or black onion seed. The seeds have a sharp, pungent flavour with a hint of a smell of strawberries and are used for flavouring confectionary and liquors.
