Next to genips, my deep affection for which we outlined here, my other all-time favorite island fruit has got to be tamarinds. Some of my favorite childhood memories revolve around discovering a hidden tamarind tree laden with fruit while trekking through the bush on some imaginary exploration mission with my brothers. Finding tamarinds was akin to finding treasure; a reward for our quest. This is actually quite fitting as the mighty tamarind itself had to undertake quite a mighty quest just to get to the Caribbean at all.
Like the majority of people living in the Caribbean today, tamarind trees are indigenous to Africa and only started appearing in the region in the 16th century.