The Complete Handbook of Dates

Chapter 1: Understanding Dates

Before you buy your first case or that first pre-tree, you need to know what the product actually is. On the surface, a date is a fruit. But it is not an apple, and it is not a raisin. It is a single-seeded drupe that grows on the date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, and unlike most commercial fruit, it is rarely picked and eaten at a single "ripe" stage. The date you eat is the product of a specific biological and chemical transformation that happens on the tree, and commercially, most of the choices buyers make are choices about managing that transformation. Understanding this is the difference between treating dates as a commodity and understanding them as a specialty crop with variables you can control.

This chapter sets the baseline. We will cover what the fruit is, the critical stages of development that dictate its qualities, the issues of moisture and sugar that define its behavior, and the practical reasons why all of this matters to you as a professional or serious user.

What you are actually buying: the fruit and its structure

Botanically, a date is a one-seeded berry. It develops from a single flower ovary, and its edible portion is the outer layer, or pericarp, which becomes a thin, fleshy, sugary layer in the ripe fruit. The hardened inner layer forms the pit, or seed. The ratio of flesh to seed is a major factor in commercial evaluation. Fat, large Medjool dates have a