Of all the dried fruit options at the grocery store, dates rank amongst the least popular of the bunch. They don't have the cute California Raisin character to make them likable, nor do they have a catchy name like Craisins. What they do have is a mildly bad reputation for being just as common -- and unwelcome -- as fruit cake at Christmas time. It's too bad because dates are responsible for making some truly delicious recipes , most of them desserts.
On our quest to bring dates back into the public's favor, we got to thinking about where dates come from. For those of you who have never given any thought to this fruit's origin, the answer may surprise you. But even more remarkable is the amount of work -- and the serious need to overcome one's fear of heights -- required for the harvest of dates.
These palms grow tall, and they take their fruit with them. Want to read more from HuffPost Taste? Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest and Tumblr. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. All rights reserved. For those who are naive about the date, we're going to break it down -- with photos to boot:.
Dates take a little courage to explore. Dates offer something new and something familiar. Dates are good for strangers or couples. Dates are great with dinner or dessert. Dates are fun. And you know what else is fun? The fact that I could be talking about a romantic outing with another human being or a small fruit that grows on a tree. Let's get to it then.
Dates grow on trees. Great big trees called "date palms," actually. Dates grow in large clusters, kind of like bunches of grapes, which hang higher than fifty feet off the ground. Isn't it nice that we can just buy them at the store without having to climb up there and grab them??
They say that everything in the desert protects itself by stinging, biting, or poking. And the date trees are no different. They have thorns that are approximately 4 to 5 inches long, and can easily pierce thru a truck tire. So the very first thing we do is to remove the thorns to make it possible to work in the date trees.
Date Palms are unique in that they are either a male tree or a female tree. The male trees produce pollen, and the female trees produce flowers. Unfortunately, neither birds or bees are attracted to the flowers, so the females have to be hand pollinated.
During the later part of February we begin to watch for the sheaths on the male trees to begin splitting open. We check each tree every single day. As soon as a sheath on a male tree begins to open, it is tied with string to hold it together, and removed from the tree.
Notice how the worker is actually standing in the tree. Each frond can hold approximately pounds. Here you get a much better view of the pollen because the sheath is split wide open. Once the sheath on the male tree opens, we will cut the whole sheath out of the tree, then hang it upside down to dry. Once the pollen has dried to a very fine powder, we sift it into a large air-tight container for storage.
A male sheath that has been removed from the tree. Notice the small split where it is starting to break open. This sheath probably weighs close to 10 pounds. The Female trees have the same kind of sheath, and as they begin to flower, we will remove the sheath and separate each strand.
We then tie the strands together and hand pollinate the flowers using the fresh pollen that we have collected from the male trees. We use a small ketchup squirt bottle for this process. We pollinate each female tree at least three times. Around April or May, as the fruit begins to "bud" on the strands, we will begin the thinning process.
First, we open up each bunch of strands that we have tied together, and cut out the middle, leaving only the outside strands.
This allows better air flow, and the chance for each individual date to grow to it's optimum size. It is not unusual for the temperatures to be above degrees during May when we are thinning, and closer to degrees during the date harvest, so most of our date workers will wear long sleeved shirts and long pants, and cover their faces with bandannas to protect themselves from both the sun and the heat.
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