[Continued from Part 1]
Following the Fruit Explorer philosophy of keeping it simple, I ate my dates raw and straight rather than fancying them up, e.g., wrapping them with bacon and stuffing them with cashews.
I opened the one pound box of dates, which contained 24 dates and cost $4.99, and was not favorably impressed with their appearance. Each date was close to two inches long, shaped somewhat like a blunt football, and was brown, wrinkled, and unhealthy looking. With some trepidation, I picked one up, raised it to my mouth, and took a tentative bite. I expected it to be revolting, but it was sweet and gooey. I liked it, not extravagantly, but it was okay. It struck me as something that you could really like if you had grown up with it or if you were Muslim and enjoyed eating one of Mohammed's favorite foods. I had a second one, and the extreme sweetness started to get to me. I decided not to have a third. (Later note: As I worked my way through the box, I came to like dates more and more, though I could not eat more than two or three at a sitting. Dates are built for me since I like sweet and gooey. Still later note: By the time I finished the box, I had fully acquired a taste for dates and could easily eat half a dozen at a sitting.)
Each date has a small seed about an inch long; see picture above. It is easy to avoid the seed, so your teeth are not put in jeopardy.
The verdict: Dates strike me as a good change of pace when you want a small portion of a sweet dessert fruit. Beyond that, they are an acquired taste that you might want to acquire so you can take advantage of the nutritional benefits of this super fruit.
Medjool dates, which I had, are usually considered to be the largest, sweetest, and juiciest dates. In other words, they are the Cadillac of dates. (Perhaps I have been taken in by advertising hype. For a contrary view, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3JX73zbM0s.) There are, however, many date cultivars; see the pictures below. For an MBA perspective on medjool dates from A to Z produced by Natural Delights, which grows dates in California, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6wQKsZtJYs. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzetMIUYKEc for a video that shows how Medjool dates are harvested on the shores of the Dead Sea by shaking the date palm with a huge machine; it looks like a cross between a monster movie and a let's-do-the-twist movie.
If you live in the desert and want a Medjool date palm, you can plant a seed, wait twenty years, and obtain a fruit-bearing tree. You needn't to be in any rush to plant since date seeds have been known to germinate after being in storage for 2000 years.
While dates appear in many dishes (see http://allrecipes.com/recipes/fruits-and-vegetables/fruits/dates/), not many date products are available in this country. You can buy dates, but then you need to make the dishes yourself. I bet Martha Stewart can make some good ones.
Date palm wine is made not from dates but from the sap of a date palm, so it is sort of like maple syrup; see the pictures of the palm trees being tapped. Once the white, milky sap is collected, it starts fermenting immediately due to yeasts in the collection pot and the air; within two hours this produces an alcoholic beverage of 4 percent alcohol. Those with patience let the sap ferment for a day to produce a stronger wine. When distilled, this wine produces arrack, which was the secret ingredient in Daniel Webster's holiday punch. According to Wikipedia, some small pollinating mammals, such as the pen-tailed tree shrew, consume large amounts of fermented palm nectar. Symptoms of inebriation have never been observed in tree shrews; apparently they can hold their liquor. (Somebody needs to explain to me why a wind-pollinated tree needs large amounts of nectar. I suspect that these "pollinators" are eating sap rather than nectar. Animals licking palm sap are shown in two pictures below; one shows a bat and the other shows two rats.) Everything in this paragraph is from Wikipedia except for the comment on Daniel Webster's holiday punch, which comes from my fund of general knowledge.
I cannot find many examples of artists giving attention to dates. Perhaps this is because dates are not prominent in our culture. In fact, I cannot think of one example of dates playing a role in our culture; dates do not even appear in "Ahab the Arab"; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_butiv7zKtk.
Your party tip is to give your guests a taste of Oriental luxury. Place oversized cushions around your living room and invite your guests to recline on them. Simulate a Bedouin tent by hanging elegant tapestries on the walls. Play Sheik of Araby music while the entertainment alternates between a jester telling camel jokes and a storyteller relating tales from the Arabian nights. Serving girls wearing I-Dream-of-Jeannie costumes circulate with platters of dates, which your reclining guests will pop into their mouths. This will provide your guests with an appreciation of the life that has been lost as we have moved into the hectic modern world. As your guests leave, they will thank your for transporting them to a by-gone era, and they will long for the simplicity of the past as well as being grateful for this lesson in multiculturalism.
