The Medjool Date Story
The date itself is probably man’s oldest cultivated fruit. Ancient writings depict date palms growing in Egypt in the fifth century B.C. Medjools were once the most prized dates in the whole Mediterranean area. Moors carried Medjool dates to Spain and they were especially prized there by Moorish royalty. Then for centuries after the Arab occupation, Spaniards sent carefully packed boxes of Medjool dates to friends as gifts. The Medjool would have been lost to the world had not Dr. Walter Swingle, a horticulturist with the US Department of Agriculture, made a trip to French Morocco, observed what he called “the perfect date” and managed to bargain with a desert chieftain for eleven offshoots. These offshoots, sent to the U.S. in 1927, were the nucleus of all the present gardens here. The date gardens Dr. Swingle had observed were rapidly being destroyed by the Bayound Disease and it was very fortunate that the isolated area where Dr. Swingle’s purchase was made seemed to be disease free. The variety later all but disappeared in North Africa. The U.S. Department of Agriculture took no chances and ordered the offshoots kept in quarantine in a remote area in southern Nevada for seven years. In 1935, nine surviving offshoots of the original shipment, plus sixty-four offshoots, which had grown up around them, were brought to the U.S. Date Garden in Indio, where they continued to multiply. In the late 1930’s they were ready for distribution to commercial growers.
Dry or soft dates are eaten out-of-hand, or may be seeded and stuffed with fillings such as almonds, candied orange and lemon peel, and marzipan. Dates can also be chopped and used in a range of sweet and savoury dishes, from tajines (tagines) in Morocco to puddings, bread, cakes and other dessert items. Dates are also processed into cubes, paste, spread, date syrup or "honey" called "dibs", powder (date sugar), vinegar or alcohol. Recent innovations include chocolate-covered dates and products such as sparkling date juice, used in some Islamic countries as a non-alcoholic version of champagne, for special occasions and religious times such as Ramadan. Dates can also be dehydrated, ground and mixed with grain to form a nutritious stockfeed. Dried dates are fed to camels, horses and dogs in the Sahara. In northern Nigeria, dates and peppers added to the native beer are believed to make it less intoxicating. Young date leaves are cooked and eaten as a vegetable, as is the terminal bud or heart, though its removal kills the palm. The finely ground seeds are mixed with flour to make bread in times of scarcity. The flowers of the date palm are also edible. Traditionally the female flowers are the most available for sale and weigh 300-400 grams. The flower buds are used in salad or ground with dried fish to make a condiment for bread. In India, North Africa, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire, date palms are tapped for the sweet sap which is converted into palm sugar (known as jaggery or gur), molasses or alcoholic beverages