Home › The Doctor's Kitchen › Date
Date
THE fruit of the Date Palm (Phœnix dactylifera), or Tree of Life, is the most nourishing of all our imported tree products, by reason of its abundant, and luscious sweetness. The name Phoenix has been bestowed on the Date Palm, because a young shoot springs always from the withered stump of an old decayed Date tree, taking the place of the dead parent; and the specific term "dactylifera" refers to the fancied resemblance between the fruit clusters and the human fingers. Children especially appreciate dates, and benefit by their plentiful sugar (about an ounce to the pound), which is readily digested, and which freely furnishes bodily warmth, and fat. With such a view doctors now likewise advise Dates for consumptive patients; moreover, by their mucilage these serve to soothe an irritable chest, and to promote expectoration; again, they tend to obviate a costive state of the bowels. The Arabs say that Adam, when expelled from Paradise, took with him three things-the Date (chief of all fruits), the Myrtle, and an ear of Wheat for seed. Those Dates which surpass all others in general excellence, are grown with much care at Tafilat, inland from Morocco. Dates of a second quality are brought from Tunis, intermixed with fragments of stalk, and branch; whilst the inferior sorts come in the form of a cake, or paste, being pressed into baskets. Dates will as a food prevent exhaustion, and will help to keep active the energies of mind, and body. The fruit should be selected when large and soft, being moist, and of a reddishyellow colour outside, and not much wrinkled, whilst having within a white membrane between the flesh and the stone. In a clever parody on Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee," an undergraduate at one of the Universities is detected in having surreptitiously primed himself before examination thus :- "Inscribed on his cuffs were the Furies and Fates, With a delicate map of the Dorian States; Whilst they found in his palms, which were hollow, What are common in Palms, namely, dates."
A conserve is prepared by the Egyptians from unripe Dates, whole, with sugar; the soft stones, being then edible, are included; and this jam, though comparatively tasteless, is very nourishing. Oriental writers have attributed to the Date Palm a certain semi-human consciousness. The carbohydrate of Dates is almost solely sugar. Half a pound of the fruit, and half a pint of new milk, will make an ample satisfying repast for a person engaged in sedentary work. An ounce of Dates contains twenty-seven grains of proteid (primary food-elements). In Arabia milch cows, and donkeys, are fed with unripe Dates boiled down with the ground stones, and with fish-bones. For Date-bread, which is nutritious, and gently laxative : the Dates apart, wash, and drain them in a colander; shake them well, and set them in a warm place to dry. Stone, and chop enough to make a cupful, and knead into a loaf of white, or brown bread, just before setting it to rise for the last time." "Break Again, for stewed Dates: "Break the Dates apart, and wash them first in cold water, then in hot water; drain them, and cover with cold water. Cook for a very few minutes until tender; take out the fruit, add a little sugar to the water, and boil for five minutes; pour it over the Dates, and set them away to become cold." Among fruits which serve to strengthen the sexual functions may be specially reckoned the Date. A lesson of interdependence as to the power of the small to assist the great is taught by a proverb, "The Date-stone props up the water-jar." Tafilat Dates, even when of excellent quality, soon become dry, and tough on exposure, after being purchased from the grocer; but their succulence and plumpness may be retained by putting them into a good-sized glass prune-bottle, with a screw metal top, sprinkling them freely therein with moist sugar, and a teaspoonful or two of water for moisture.
Two workable recipes sit inside this essay: dates kneaded into a bread dough, and stewed dates. The rest is dietetics, etymology and trade notes from a period when dates arrived dry and often dirty.
- The hinge: wash and dry firstBoth recipes begin by breaking the cluster apart and washing the fruit. Imported dates of the period came loose or pressed into baskets with stalk and grit; washing then drying in a warm place matters because wet dates will slick the dough and refuse to distribute. Modern packaged dates need only a rinse if they are sticky, and a pat dry.
- Stoning"Stone, and chop enough to make a cupful" means about 5-6 oz of pitted flesh, roughly 7-8 Medjools or 20-25 Deglet Noors. Split each date lengthwise with a thumbnail rather than cutting; the pit slips out whole.
- Adding fruit to bread doughKnead the chopped dates in at the very end, just before the final proof, exactly as written. Added earlier they tear the gluten as it develops and their sugar accelerates the yeast unevenly. Flour the pieces lightly so they separate instead of clumping.
- Stewed dates: "a very few minutes"Take this literally. Soft dates need 3-5 minutes barely simmering to plump; longer and they collapse into a purée and the skins slip. The syrup is then reduced separately for five minutes and poured back over, which keeps the fruit intact.
- Which dates to buyThe book's ideal is reddish-yellow, soft, not much wrinkled, with a white membrane inside. That describes a semi-soft date at peak condition. Medjool suits the stewed recipe; the drier Deglet Noor is better for bread, where it holds its shape.
- Archaic quantitiesA grain is about 65 mg, so "twenty-seven grains of proteid" per ounce works out near 1.7 g of protein — considerably higher than the roughly 0.6 g modern tables give for dates. Half a pint here is a British half pint, 10 fl oz.
- The storage trickSugar and a teaspoon or two of water in a sealed jar does keep dates supple, but at room temperature added moisture invites surface mould over weeks. Refrigerate the jar, or simply keep dates airtight and cold, which achieves the same end.
- YieldThe date bread is a single standard loaf. The stewed dates are a compote, quantity unstated in the recipe, and are better cold as the recipe directs.
This page comes from a genre now almost extinct: the medicinal cookery book, in which every foodstuff was catalogued for what it would do to the bowels, the chest or the nerves before anyone asked how it tasted. Dates suited that project well, being nearly pure sugar and, at around 7 g of fibre per 100 g, genuinely laxative — the "costive state of the bowels" the author has in mind. The trade details are the most concretely historical part of the entry: Tafilalt in southeastern Morocco, Tunis, and the pressed date cake packed into baskets are the grades the author reports, and Tafilat dates are said to become dry and tough soon after purchase, which is why so much of the advice here concerns restoring moisture rather than cooking. The Phoenix etymology and the story of Adam carrying date, myrtle and wheat out of Paradise are traditional rather than documented, repeated from earlier herbals; the claim that dates strengthen the sexual functions belongs to the same inherited lore and has no clinical basis. The verse parodies Bret Harte's 1870 "Plain Language from Truthful James," and the racial language it carries — flagged in the editor's note above — was, as that note says, unremarkable in print at the time.