Sharab Tamar Hindi — Tamarind Cooler

Tamar hindi — "Indian date" in Arabic — arrived in the Levant along the spice routes and was adopted immediately by a region that loves tart, acidic flavors. In the souks of Beirut and Sidon before the war, street vendors carried ornate glass urns of ice-cold sharab tamar hindi on their backs, filling small glasses for a few lira each. The drink is simultaneously cooling and warming — the tamarind provides deep tartness, the sugar gives sweetness, and the rose water adds a floral top note that makes it distinctive from anything found in the Western hemisphere. Lebanese Heritage Kitchen families in Dearborn and Sydney make sharab tamar hindi in large pitchers for summer gatherings, and diaspora children who encounter it for the first time at a family party often say it is the most interesting drink they have ever tasted.