Dates for Dummies

Since coming here, I have learned a lot about dates. 

Before, I usually thought of dates as very small cubes, say 1 cm x 1 cm, that come in the box of Quaker 100% Natural Cereal.  I also thought of Dromedary Dates, which are also small cubes.  I knew that they were cut off of a larger fruit and possibly squished into the shape of a cube, and I vaguely knew what a real date looked like, but that was about it.

Of course, they sell dates at the commissary.  Reliably.  Wow!  This may be the only thing that is consistently at the commissary!    Not only that, but they come all different ways and in different types. 

Over by the deli counter, they sell the vacuum-sealed dates.  These are a bunch of dates all squished into a plastic container and vacuum-sealed until they are even more squished.  These are the kind that are great to throw into your suitcase for presents when you go home.  They also keep a long time if you don't open the package.  They taste just like regular dates, so there is no reason to not get them this way unless you don't feel like wrestling the package open every time you want a date. 

Usually, we get our dates from the commissary's "Nut Man."  There is a "Nut Counter," rather like the deli counter or the bakery, that is all nuts and dried fruits.  The Nut Man stands behind the counter and scoops out what you want, weighs it, gives it a sticker, and hands it to you just like you are buying cold cuts.  Here is a pictures of the boys visiting the Nut Man.  They love to go there because we can get dried kiwi, too. 
 

The Nut Man has four kinds of dates.  I forget what they are called since it is all in Arabic, but the upshot is that the more expensive kind really do taste better.  We have tried all the kinds.  (And we've tried all the dried fruits, like mango, raisins, and figs.  The Iranian golden raisins are not worth getting because the US golden raisins are better!)

Right in front of Everett there are four kinds of dates going back.  The round cylinders by his had are figs.  Green is kiwi, orange is mango, yellow is pineapple.  The white in the back is coconut (I think).  The nuts are over by Lawrence and farther on to the right.

So anyway, I thought I was pretty up-to-snuff about dates.  Well, I was in the produce section the other day, and I saw "fresh local dates" there.  I had never seen any dates like that.  They look like giant golden grapes.  Fresh dates?  So the others are dried? 

I thought all dates looked like this:

 
 This is what they look like when they fall off the date palm tree.  I know because the boys and I found a date palm tree on camp with ripe dates that were falling off.  They were falling off onto the ground (the dates still on the tree were so high there was no way to get them), so we collected some and ate them.  They tasted perfectly normal.
 
But these dates looked like this:

???

Are these unripe, or not-quite-ripe, dates?  I was intrigued.  So I bought them.  I brought them home.  I showed Mike.  And I tasted one. 

YUCK-O!  Blaech - I spit it out and wrinkled up my entire face (before I could stop myself, and the kids saw me do it so now they don't like these kinds of dates either).  The normal kind of dates are soft and sticky sweet and chewy.  These kind are crunchy like an apple, and bitter.  I thought, "Maybe I just got a bad one" and tried again.  Pah-tooie!  Nope.  They are just bad.  I did convince the boys to try a bite, and they agreed that they were bad.  Mike says he sees guys at work eating these all the time.  Why??  The other kind are so much better! 

So now I know that there are "good, normal dates" and "bad, fresh local dates."  Duly noted.  They say that Bedouins could live in the desert for weeks on end by living off of only seven dates a day.  I hope they got to eat the good kind!