A Different Kind of Date

Bahri Dates

If I didn’t live in a place that’s cold and snowy for a good chunk of the year, I’d have a date palm in my backyard.  (And citrus trees and pinenut trees and olive trees and maybe a goat or two…)  Not only do dates have a wide range of uses — eat them out of hand, simmer them in a savory Moroccan tagine, grind them into date sugar and use them in cakes and hot chocolate — they have a unique flavor and mouthfeel.  No other sweet on the planet has the creaminess of a date; no other fruit has its intriguing wrinkly outer texture and flawlessly smooth internal texture.  And no other foodstuff dries so readily and is so portable.

My fascination with dates reached a new high when I found Bahri dates at my local produce market a few weeks ago.  Normally, they’re grown in Israel and are only shipped fresh, which makes them much more fragile than dried dates and therefore much harder to find.  These, however, had been grown in California.  Like their Israeli brethren, they’re picked and sold still clinging to the vine.

While some say Bahri dates can be eaten while their skins are still golden and firm, I’m finding that the longer I leave them on my kitchen counter, the better they taste.  (These, as you can see, are shading well into the tan-brown hue and are starting to acquire their distinctive wrinkles.)  But because Bahri dates taste much better close to fresh than standard ones do, when you eat them during their not-quite-fresh-but-not-quite-ripe stage, they’re sweet and creamy inside yet still have a pleasantly crispy outer skin.  Quite a market find!  And the best part is their tantalizing lead-up:  as they sit on my counter, they seem to come into their own one date at a time, thus giving me something to look forward to every morning.  It’s a bit like an edible advent calendar, except that after I’ve eaten the last one, I’ll have to go off in search of more!

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