Fun Facts About Dates in Honor of Harvest Season

August and early September mark the beginning of a new date harvest! Though date trees begin to bear fruit in the spring, they are typically not ripe until late summer, early fall when their best qualities — softness, chewiness, and sweetness — have had time to fully develop. In honor of the new harvest, Sphinx Date Co. shares some fun facts about the date harvest, their role in holiday cooking, and more!

Dates love the desert! Date palms, the tree from which dates are harvested, grow best in hot, dry and sunny climates (no wonder they grow so well in Arizona and Southern California!). However, they do need a constant flow of water at their base so their root system can soak it up. 

Each tree can produce between 200 and 300 hundred pounds of dates per year, and date palms can be harvested multiple times throughout the season. The date “dates” back in time at least 50 million years and is considered to be the world’s oldest cultivated fruit. 

In addition to a long history, these little brown jewels of sweetness play a significant role in many cultural celebrations, including the upcoming Rosh Hashanah, during which they are often used to make honey nut breads. They are even touted as one of the Seven Species in the Torah, where they are referred to as “d’vash.” In Great Britain, they are used during the winter holidays in recipes from sticky toffee pudding to fruit cake. 

Speaking of sweets… Dates are the perfect sugar substitute. Medjools have received some newfound popularity over the last several years as nutrition nuts searched for sweet replacements for traditional processed white sugars. Sweet on their own, they can easily be made into pastes and jams, added to smoothies and used as a sugar substitute when baking. Rather than the empty calories of processed sugars, dates are loaded with nutrients, too! Rich in fiber, magnesium, vitamin B6 and iron, dates are also a good source of protein and are even believed to help with some health issues such as reducing chronic pain. 

Dates have a long shelf life. If they are kept in an air tight container at room temperature, they’ll stay fresh for about a month; in the refrigerator, they will maintain their integrity for at least six months; and if frozen, they can stay fresh for a year or more. 

The time has come to stock up on fresh dates! Sphinx Date Co. has just received new dates from the 2020 harvest for sale in store and online, with specialty packages available to gift all season long.