And the calendar pages blew
Oct. 18th, 2011 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaOn Sunday, I took myself off for a walk down Uxbridge Road to frolic among the fleshpots and poundshops of West Ealing. I actually wanted to buy a small, flip-top plastic bin. I failed utterly, but I discovered a whole new fruit.
Passing the large and mysteriously hybrid Asian/Polish shop[*] I stopped to buy a lemon and some garlic, and observed a small sign saying "fresh dates".
Now, I know about fresh dates. They're the glossy, sticky ones that come in plastic trays (often with inexplicably nobbly plastic poky-stick fork-things), particularly at Christmas. As opposed to dried dates, which hang out year-round in bags in health food shops.
These, though... well, they looked like small, yellow plums. Curious, I bought half a dozen and trotted on my way.
I nibbled on one... it was crunchy! Like an apple! My brain, thinking that what I was eating was basically a plum, busily screamed at me "it's not ripe! Ewwww, it's sour and unripe, stop eating it!" Meanwhile, reports were coming in from other quarters that actually, it was fairly sweet and tasted more or less like a date, but... crunchy.
I had another, and decided I liked them. And had a little light google, and discovered that dates have four stages (apparently). Wikipedia tells me that they are "known throughout the world by their Arabic names kimri (unripe), khlal (full-size, crunchy), rutab (ripe, soft), tamr (ripe, sun-dried)". I guess mine are khlal, then.
Yesterday I picked one up from the fruit bowl, and noticed that the end had started to go a bit brown and squashy. Dates can ripen off the tree, so I guess it's heading towards rutab. The brain, which still isn't getting with the program, was quietly repelled by my eating ewww, rotten, squashy, nasty, beginning-to-ferment plum... in actuality, the fruit was quite squashy, but definitely heading more into familiar date texture/taste territory.
So this isn't exactly a new fruit, but it is quite an exciting new discovery. Further googling suggests that this might be the beginning of the season for this sort of date, so I may have a couple of months of crunchy fresh date excitement coming up.
I didn't think to take a picture of the fresh dates, but they actually looked very like the ones these people photographed at a Hollywood farmers' market. Incidentally, I'd like just to pause briefly and boggle at that phrase: Hollywood farmers' market.
[*] Note for locals: the one on the north side of Uxbridge Road opposite the Lido[**].
[**] Note for non-locals: this isn't actually a lido at all. It's a small park called The Lido, presumably for historical reasons.
Passing the large and mysteriously hybrid Asian/Polish shop[*] I stopped to buy a lemon and some garlic, and observed a small sign saying "fresh dates".
Now, I know about fresh dates. They're the glossy, sticky ones that come in plastic trays (often with inexplicably nobbly plastic poky-stick fork-things), particularly at Christmas. As opposed to dried dates, which hang out year-round in bags in health food shops.
These, though... well, they looked like small, yellow plums. Curious, I bought half a dozen and trotted on my way.
I nibbled on one... it was crunchy! Like an apple! My brain, thinking that what I was eating was basically a plum, busily screamed at me "it's not ripe! Ewwww, it's sour and unripe, stop eating it!" Meanwhile, reports were coming in from other quarters that actually, it was fairly sweet and tasted more or less like a date, but... crunchy.
I had another, and decided I liked them. And had a little light google, and discovered that dates have four stages (apparently). Wikipedia tells me that they are "known throughout the world by their Arabic names kimri (unripe), khlal (full-size, crunchy), rutab (ripe, soft), tamr (ripe, sun-dried)". I guess mine are khlal, then.
Yesterday I picked one up from the fruit bowl, and noticed that the end had started to go a bit brown and squashy. Dates can ripen off the tree, so I guess it's heading towards rutab. The brain, which still isn't getting with the program, was quietly repelled by my eating ewww, rotten, squashy, nasty, beginning-to-ferment plum... in actuality, the fruit was quite squashy, but definitely heading more into familiar date texture/taste territory.
So this isn't exactly a new fruit, but it is quite an exciting new discovery. Further googling suggests that this might be the beginning of the season for this sort of date, so I may have a couple of months of crunchy fresh date excitement coming up.
I didn't think to take a picture of the fresh dates, but they actually looked very like the ones these people photographed at a Hollywood farmers' market. Incidentally, I'd like just to pause briefly and boggle at that phrase: Hollywood farmers' market.
[*] Note for locals: the one on the north side of Uxbridge Road opposite the Lido[**].
[**] Note for non-locals: this isn't actually a lido at all. It's a small park called The Lido, presumably for historical reasons.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 11:32 am (UTC)I don't remember eating one[*] until recently though... and I'm a bit undecided. They're not nasty, but they're not quite as nice as dried figs had lead me to hope they might be.
[*] Certainly not "as is". I can't rule out that I've had pieces of fresh fig in some posh dish at a restaurant somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 11:39 am (UTC)A fresh one just off a tree, that's ripened in some hot climate, is a lot nicer than the ones we get here, though: sweeter and less stodgy/woolly.