After chestnuts and jujubes, my favorite fruits are dates. These photos were posted on Facebook by a Thai woman, Prawput Pawkrasin, who is a huge fan of dates. These photos were taken in Egypt where the Zaghloul variety originated. It is a superb fresh eating date but not as good when dried. As far as I know, no one in the US, and in fact very few growers outside of Egypt (if any), have this variety. I tried it years ago in Egypt and it is excellent.
9 Likes
Do they turn brown upon maturity, or do they remain red? Or are they purposefully eaten at an early red stage?
She looks rather excited about those dates.
These are eaten when red and crisp. They are delicious. If allowed to soften they are still edible like most other dried dates, but nothing special.
1 Like
More Egyptian dates -
6 Likes
I assume those are the date trees in the background. How do they harvest them from way up there?
In US, they use the kind of truck that is used for fixing power lines. In Egypt, we have a guy climb the palm tree. that is a very special skill, and these guys also do the pollination. Palm trees are very special in the way they need to be hand pollinated (pollen transferred from male tree to female tree) in order to get good crop.
1 Like
Thanks Ahmad,
I imagine that guy climbing the palm tree is not harnessed on, rather trained since he was a little kid. I don’t know that, just what comes to mind.
The only dates I ever had came from BJs. They were okay, but all those other types seem phenomenal.
They actually turn brown black, and are very tasty. The intermediate stage when they start getting brownish at the tip, is my favorite stage, very sweet, a little soft but still crunchy, and no astringent feel as in the fully red ones in the photo.
The one time I saw the guy doing it, he was using a simple rope as a harness. I am pretty sure he can climb without it, but going down a 30-50’ high palm tree carrying 20+ pounds of dates can be rather dangerous… and yes, they get trained on that since they are 6-7 years old…
castanea, you got me nostalgic… I haven’t eaten these zagloul dates since 2001 
, when I moved to USA…
These dates get ripe in Sep/Oct, and I prefer to visit Egypt in July/Aug when mangoes are ripe… 
4 Likes
quite dangerous. Here in vegas, even well-trained palm tree trimmers succumb to ‘asphyxia’ related to palm -tree-climbing. The climber secured by the harness, but dead for some mysterious reason/s.
That’s so sad… so many ways to get injured or die on the job…
New photos -
6 Likes
@castanea have you been in Egypt lately? Have you tried the more ripe Zaghlouls; the black soft ones?
I have not been there in the last five years. I have eaten Zaghlouls when they are soft and they are good, but not my favorite.
1 Like
I have eaten both the crunchy and the soft, and I prefer the latter .