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Sweet, rich and a versatile ingredient, dates have been providing nourishment for thousands of years.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that they have a special significance in many cultures across the world.

The fruit is mentioned in the Bible and the �ϳܰ�’a��. It has put in noteworthy appearances across popular culture, from almost making Indiana Jones ill, to being on Shakespeare’s menu for Juliet and Paris’ cancelled wedding.

91�ȱ� Bitesize takes a look at why dates play such an important role in so many cultures.

People have been growing dates for at least 5,000 years

Dates are thought to be one of the first cultivated fruits in history, meaning that they were deliberately grown to eat rather than foraged from wild plants.

How do we know this? Date stones are regularly found during archaeological digs in North Africa and the Arabian Gulf, where the fruit has formed part of the regular diet for thousands of years.

Date palms have also appeared in rock paintings in Saudi Arabia, showing people taking care of the plants, says Dr Shahina Ghazanfar, a research associate at Kew Gardens and author of Plants of the �ϳܰ�’a��.

She said: “On these beautiful rock faces it shows date palms with tiny stick figures climbing up to the top and assessing the dates. With that, we know that they were certainly cultivated as long back as the Akkadians and the Sumerian people, which goes back to at least 5 or 6,000 years ago.”

Date palms in Judaism, Islam and Christianity

In the Middle East, where Judaism, Islam and Christianity originated, date vines are an intrinsic part of the landscape - and they are eye-catching sights. Growing to a towering 30m (approx 98ft) tall, the date palm’s stem is formed of old leaf bases, topped with a crown of long, pointed 5m (approx 16ft) long leaves and spikes of flowers.

Israeli-born chef Itamar Srulovich, who runs a Middle Eastern restaurant in London with his wife, Sarit Packer, said: “For the longest time, your main source of sweetness in cooking would have been dates. Before people were using sugar, dates and especially date syrup or date molasses was your sweet element.

“If you compare it to a sugar syrup, it's much more complex. It is kind of like toffee sauce, but for grown-ups. It's not just plain sweet. It has more layers to it - a very, very slight bitter undertone.”

The fruit doesn’t easily rot, meaning it could be stored for long periods of time. And the stem and leaves were used to make baskets, sleeping mats, roof thatching and building materials for animal enclosures.

Dates are also significant in Islamic culture and grow in places such as the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

It has a significant role in holy books

But the date palm’s cultural significance goes far beyond its everyday use. The plant is mentioned many times in the Torah, Bible and �ϳܰ�’a�� - and usually at important moments.

In the Book of Deuteronomy, dates are one of the seven species that the land of Israel was blessed with, and which have symbolic meanings.

In the Book of Exodus, God promises Moses that the Israelites will be saved from slavery in Egypt and taken to a land “flowing with milk and honey”. It is widely thought - though sometimes disputed - that “honey” actually referred to date syrup rather than honey made by bees.

In the New Testament, Christ was greeted by a crowd waving date palm branches as he entered Jerusalem in the days before his crucifixion.

Shahina said: “There's an old Arabic saying that there are as many uses of date palm as there are days in the year.”

Dates play an important role in religious holidays

Dates are often used to break the fast during Ramadan, as they are highly nutritious and easier for an empty stomach to digest than many other foods. These are mentioned in a Hadithas food that the Prophet Muhammad regularly ate, saying that fasts should be broken with either dates or water.

At Rosh Hashanah - Jewish New Year - dates are one of the foods used by many Jewish communities to symbolise blessings for the year to come.

Itamar says: “It's very traditional in the Jewish New Year to have sweet foods to start the year on a sweet note for a good year to come. Oftentimes, it would be dates or apple and date syrup that you would eat.

“So there's the pomegranate for many blessings, like the seeds of the pomegranate. You would always have a fish head so that you're ahead and not behind, you have a new season’s fruit, and then you have the sweetness.”

In Christianity, crosses made from date palms - or the palm leaves themselves - are handed out at church on Palm Sunday.

This article was published in September 2024