Date


Dates are the most wholesome and nourishing of all our imported

fruits. Children especially appreciate their luscious sweetness, as

afforded by an abundant sugar which is easily digested, and which

quickly repairs waste of heat and fat. With such a view, likewise,

doctors now advise dates for consumptive patients; also because

they soothe an irritable chest, and promote expectoration; whilst,

furthermore, they prevent
ostiveness. Dates are the fruit of the

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), or, Tree of Life.



In old English Bibles of the sixteenth century, the name Date-tree

is constantly given to the Palm, and the fruit thereof was the first

found by the Israelites when wandering in the Wilderness.



Oriental writers have attributed to this tree a certain semi-human

consciousness. The name Phoenix was [153] 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 a fancied

resemblance between clusters of the fruit and the human fingers.



The Date palm is remarkably fond of water, and will not thrive

unless growing near it, so that the Arabs say: In order to flourish,

its feet must be in the water, and its head in the fire (of a hot sun).

Travellers across the desert, when seeing palm Dates in the

horizon, know that wells of water will be found near at hand: at

the same time they sustain themselves with Date jam.



In some parts of the East this Date palm is thought been the tree of

the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. It is mystically

represented as the tree of life in the sculptured foliage of early

French churches, and on the primitive mosaics found in the apses

of Roman Basilicas. Branches of this tree are carried about in

Catholic countries on Palm Sunday. Formerly Dates were sent to

England and elsewhere packed in mats from the Persian gulf; but

now they arrive in clean boxes, neatly laid, and free from duty; so

that a wholesome, sustaining, and palatable meal may be had for

one penny, if they are eaten with bread.



The Egyptian Dates are superior, being succulent and luscious

when new, but apt to become somewhat hard after Christmas.



The Dates, however, which surpass all others in their general

excellence, are grown with great care at Tafilat, two or three

hundred miles inland from Morocco, a region to which Europeans

seldom penetrate.



These Dates travel in small packages by camel, rail, and steamer,

being of the best quality, and highly valued. Their exportation is

prohibited by the African [154] authorities at Tafilat, unless the

fruit crop has been large enough to allow thereof after gathering

the harvest with much religious ceremony.



Dates of a second quality are brought from Tunis, being intermixed

with fragments of stalk and branch; whilst the inferior sorts

come in the form of a cake, or paste (adjoue!), being pressed

into baskets. In this shape they were tolerably common with us

in Tudor times, and were then used for medicinal purposes. Strutt

mentions a grocer's bill delivered in 1581, in which occurs

the item of six pounds of dates supplied at a funeral for

two shillings; and we read that in 1821 the best kind of dates

cost five shillings a pound.



If taken as a portable refection by jurymen and others who may be

kept from their customary food Dates will prevent exhaustion, and

will serve to keep active the energies of mind and body. The fruit

should be selected when large and soft, being moist, and of a

reddish yellow colour outside, and not much wrinkled, whilst

having within a white membrane between the flesh and the stone.



Beads for rosaries are made in Barbary from Date stones turned in

a lathe; or when soaked in water for a couple of days the stones

may be given to cattle as a nutritious food, being first ground in a

mill. The fodder being astringent will serve by its tannin, which is

abundant, to cure or prevent looseness.



In a clever parody on Bret Harte's Heathen Chinee, an undergraduate

is detected in having 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.



[155] Again, a conserve is prepared by the Egyptians from unripe

Dates whole with sugar. The soft stones are edible: and this jam,

though tasteless, is very nourishing. The Arabs say that Adam

when driven out of Paradise took with him three things--the Date,

chief of all fruits, Myrtle, and an ear of Wheat.



Another Palm--the Sagus, or, Cycus revolute,--which grows

naturally in Japan and the East Indian Islands, being also

cultivated in English hot-houses, yields by its gummy pith our

highly nutritious sago. This when cooked is one of the best and

most sustaining foods for children and infirm old persons. The

Indians reserve their finest sago for the aged and afflicted. A

fecula is washed from the abundant pith, which is chemically a

starch, very demulcent, and more digestible than that of rice. It

never ferments in the stomach, and is very suitable for hectic

persons. By the Arabs the pith of the Date-bearing Palm is eaten in

like manner. The simple wholesome virtues of this domestic

substance have been told of from childhood in the well-known

nursery rhyme, which has been playfully rendered into Latin and

French:--



There was an old man of Iago

Whom they kept upon nothing but sago;

Oh! how he did jump when the doctor said plump:

'To a roast leg of mutton you may go.'



Jamdudum senior quidam de rure Tobagus

Invito mad das carpserat ore dapes;

Sed medicus tandem non injucunda locutus:

'Assoe' dixit 'oves sunt tibi coena, senex.'



J'ai entendu parler d'un veillard de Tobag

Qui ne mangea longtemps que du ris et du sague;

Mais enfin le medecin lui dit ces mots:

'Allez vous en, mon ami, au gigot.'



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