Have you ever had a date shake?  It is milk shake with up to a half cup or more of dates.

Dates are caramelly, complex, sweet, savory and delightfully textured.

Dates have always been special for me because my grandmother – my very special grandmother – always had dates waiting for me at any time of day or night.  I just loved them; almost as much as I loved her.  She lived to be 104 and was the most important person in my life growing up, by far.

She would somehow find a way to take the pit out of the dates and then do something else to them.  I really don’t know what she did, but, boy, were they good to eat.  bottom line I could not resist the taste of my grandmother’s dates.  I never asked her for her recipe, and I really regret that now.  I have no idea how to recreate what she did with dates.

So, you can see why dates have a special meaning for me.

The good news is that for six months of the year I live right in the midst of date mecca in the United States.  95% of the dates produced in the USA are produced in the Coachella Valley in Southern California. This area is 30 miles east of Palm Springs, which is 120 miles east of Los Angeles.  Much of this area sits at below sea level, located just north of the Salton Sea, the largest lake in California, with irrigation water supplied by canals from the Colorado River.

At the beginning of the 20^th Century date palm trees were imported into the United States from North Africa and the Middle East.  However the first dates were produced some 6,500 years ago.  Dates play a highly symbolic role in the Muslim, Christian and Jewish religions.

The largest producers of dates in the world are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria and Iraq.  Of the 8.5 million tons of dates produced each year, only 55,000 tons are produced in the United States.  But, 95% of the dates produced in the US are produced in the Coachella Valley in California.

Growing dates commercially requires patience and skill.  A typical date palm tree takes 8-15 years after planting to begin to yield a commercially viable product.  At that point a date palm tree can become prolific, producing between 150 and 300 pounds of dates in a harvest season.  But getting the dates is not an easy task.

The trees which can soar to 60, 75 or even 100 feet in height require human beings, called palmeros, who are the green berets of agricultural work, to scale these date palm trees to the very top, suspend themselves from the palm fronds, wielding machetes while 60-100 feet off the ground.

I live just a block away from Shields Date Farm, which is one of the oldest date farms in the Coachella Valley.  In 2024 Shields will be celebrating its 100^th anniversary.

I can drop into Shields Date Farm and Garden almost anytime any day to get my fix of dates.  They offer a variety of dates for sale.  There are over 30 different varieties of dates, which can be sorted into three categories – semi soft, soft, and dry.  They have different flesh (firm, soft or dry), sugar content (high, low), and moisture content (high, low).

Medjools and Deglet Noors and the most popular, but there are numerous other varieties including Barhi, Halawi, Zahidi, Khadrawy, Sayer, Dayri, Honey, Thoory, Hayany and Maktoom to mention a few.

My favorite thing to do at Shields is to order a date shake. In 1936 Shields developed its own date shake which uses date crystals, dried “nubbins” of dates, sweetened with date sugar, and blended to create a paste.

It turns out that dates are a fruit that has all kinds of positive health benefits.  Date shakes are high in protein, fiber, calcium, Vitamin A and potassium, along with magnesium and Vitamin B6.  They also are good sources of niacin, iron, polyphenols, and phosphorus.  All of this is helpful for brain health, digestive health and heart health.

My daughter Kelsey informed me five years ago when she was pregnant with her first child that dates help ease natural labor during childbirth.  10 dates every day for four weeks prior to labor apparently eases labor.  She had me sending her 280 dates during the four weeks before her first childbirth.

But Shields offers even more for the inquisitive.  It has a movie theater that continually plays “The Romance and Sex Life of a Date”.   

There are male and female date palm trees. Only the female date palm trees can bear fruit.  In the natural environment you would have on one acre of land the same number of male and female date palm trees, relying on nature and winds to blow the pollen from the male trees over to the female trees.  The egg cells in the female trees are then fertilized by the pollen from the male trees.

However, for commercial purposes for each acre of date palm trees, only one male date palm tree is planted for every 48 female palm trees.  Instead of relying on nature and winds, the palmeros, mentioned earlier, are called upon to scale the male tree and cut off with their machete the male flower stalks off the top of the tree.  On the ground the pollen is shaken off the stalks and collected.  The palmeros then climb the female date palm trees to squeeze the pollen onto the female flower.

Bottom line, if you get a chance to have date shake, especially one at Shields Date Farm and Garden, in Indio California, do so.

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