DIANA HENRY
SWEET DATES Diana Henry showcases this sticky fruit in savoury recipes including a stuffed roast chicken and pan-fried mackerel recipes DIANA HENRY photographs SAM STOWELL
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t’s hard to believe that dates are fruit. They seem more of a sweet meat. Bite into one and the flesh collapses like soft fudge, and it’s just as sugary. As a child I thought of dates much as I did raisins, something squidgy to put into the cakes that I wasn’t, at that time, particularly fond of, like date and walnut loaf – workaday cakes, sensible cakes. Dates were bought in square blocks wrapped in clear plastic. Sometimes my mum would shave off a few slivers to eat while she was watching the telly. Later, at school, I had apple, date and walnut sandwiches in my lunch box. It seems an odd filling, but it was lovely against salty butter and brown bread. When I discovered Middle Eastern food I saw dates in a very different way. They were no longer for sweet dishes but provided a contrast to savoury ingredients in Moroccan tagines. Dates are especially good in lamb tagine, and jewelled stuffings for chickens and lamb shoulders. So much of the food of North Africa plays on a sweet-savoury balance and dates are perfect against preserved lemons, chickpeas, aubergines, feta and yogurt. The problem, when cooking with them, is getting the balance right. Too many dates and a dish is cloying. I make an onion and date relish to eat with hummus but it only takes a little, plus some chopped preserved lemon, and you have an extra special snack. It’s the same with salads.
I use chopped dates a lot in Middle Eastern-inspired salads, but you have to chop them finely and separate the chunks so they don’t stick together. Date syrup, which is made by boiling dates, puréeing them and squeezing out the liquid, has become more available recently and has to be used carefully for the same reason. A thin drizzle is good on purées of garlicky beans and aubergine. You need just enough to have your mouth revel in the contrast. Thousands of varieties of dates are grown in the Middle East and North Africa but only a few types make their way here, mainly medjool and deglet nour. Deglet nour means ‘fingers of light’, the most beautiful name for a fruit I’ve ever heard. Deglet nour are paler than medjools, like amber and almost translucent, which is perhaps how they got their name. Medjool dates are like big fat ebony beads. The Talmud, the Qur’an and the Bible all use dates to signify abundance and fertility, and while we might think of dates simply as something sweet, those who live in deserts regard them as life-giving. The date palm can survive in the desert where nothing else flourishes, sustaining Bedouins who have been known to exist for long periods simply on dates and camel milk. There’s a saying that the Bedouin spend their lives looking for the ‘two black ones’, water and dates. For some, they’re as fundamental in life as bread.
Good Food contributing editor Diana Henry is an award-winning food writer. Her latest book is From the Oven to the Table, (Mitchell Beazley). For more of Diana’s recipes, go to bbcgoodfoodme.com. @dianahenryfood
38 BBC Good Food Middle East April 2021
