This time of the year

If you had a chance to visit one of the Arabian gulf countries, I'm sure you will instantly notice that the date palm is the most common tree. In fact the date palm is one of the oldest fruit trees in Arabia, and played a key role in the life of it's people. Dates (pronounced tamer in Arabic) were concederd the desert man fuel because of it's nutritious benefits.

This kind of tree likes to grow in a dry and warm climate with lots of sun. There are too many varieties of dates with different names, ours is called barhi and it goes throughout steps to ripen as shown below:

first stage called khalal in Arabic, has ahard flesh but edible

second stage called monasef in Arabic which means half dry -half soft

third stage called barhi in Arabic, it has a sweet soft flesh

Date palms are picked individually by hand several times during the harvest season since dates don’t all ripen simultaneously. After, they are cleaned and packed in boxes. It's a traditional habit that you send dates as a gift to your neighbors, friends and very close family members annually. Then store the rest in your house for Ramadan month.....or even to bake a simple date cake!