Fresh Dates

Ever tasted them?

Ever seen one?

Me neither.

Not until I saw the photo above, which accompanied Nick Fox's informative article which appeared in this past Wednesday's New York Times Dining section, had I any idea what a fresh date looked like.

Fox wrote that the fruit is crunchy and juicy like an apple but sweet as honey and tastes just like a date.

Ummm.

Here's the article.

An Old Friend Without the Wrinkles

They have the crunch and juiciness of a Granny Smith apple, but they can be as sweet as honey.

Hard, yellow and hanging from a withered stem, they don't look like any fruit that most Americans have seen.

But the taste is familiar, just like a date.

And that's what they are: dates, fresh off the tree, unlike the brown, soft, dried ones that are widely sold.

Their two- to three-month season is just beginning.

Hard yellow dates are loved by millions in the Middle East, But Ben Laflin, 83, said he also enjoyed them as a boy on his family's date farm in the Coachella Valley of California.

He began developing a market for the yellow dates after he offered some to Tadros Tadros, a friend and an Egyptian date farmer.

"I said 'It's beautiful,' " Mr. Tadros recalled.

"He said, 'Are you sure? Because for us, it's considered not ripe.' I said, 'There are a lot of ethnic people who love to have the fruit in that stage.'"

In the 15 or 20 years since the two men began selling them, fresh dates have remained obscure.

Only one variety grown commercially in the United States - Barhi - can be eaten fresh.

Of the 6,000 acres of date trees in the Coachella Valley, the center of the nation's date industry, only 40 are planted with Barhis, said Sam Aslan, an Agriculture Department conservationist in Indio, Calif.

The two major date varieties, Medjools and Deglet Noors, are full of tannins and must mellow with age before they can be eaten.

Even in the Barhis, a stem can have both sugary jewels - usually the deepest yellow, with a spot of brown - that will make you smack your lips, and others that will make you pucker up.

"I spend a lot of time talking to people who've never tried them before," said Robert Lower of Thermal, Calif., who sells fresh dates at farmers' markets.

"They usually like them, but they're an acquired taste."

While the astringency can be satisfying to Middle Eastern palates, Rawia Bishara, a native of Nazareth who owns the restaurant Tanoreen in Brooklyn, sweetens fresh dates.

She pits them, fills them with almonds and steeps them in a rosewater bath. (Most stores that sell the dates will have the ingredients.)

In the Arabic nomenclature used by date farmers in the United States, these dates are "khalal," the second of four main stages of datehood.

They come after the green "kimri" stage and just before the soft, gooey "rutab" stage.

Almost all the dates sold here are in the final stage, called "tamar," when they are firm and dark.

Over the past few years, more markets have been carrying khalal dates.

"When we first got them, people would say, 'What are these things?' " said Charlie Sahadi, the owner of Sahadi's, a Middle Eastern market in Brooklyn.

"Now it's no longer an ethnic item. It's a mainstream item."

For the next month, they will be available from the Jewel Date Company in Thermal, (760) 399-4474, for $4 per pound plus shipping; and Tadros Tadros, Palm Desert, Calif., (760) 564-3387. Call for price.