A date with dates

Imagine a place brimming with sweet succulent dates in every direction! Preeti Verma Lal recounts her experience of savouring palm dates, which are synonymous with the culture of Oman. 

Khalas. Khunaizi. Khasab. Naghal. Qashkantrah. Bunaringah. Muscat was sizzling in the midsummer afternoon sun, tall men in traditional dishdasah and embroidered kumah (toupee) were scampering to work, cars were whizzing past white homes and Mazin al-Abri, the Afaq guide, was muttering names in his very-Omani brogue. The mercury was soaring swiftly, but there was not a sweat on my brow. Instead, temptation was devouring me. Burnished yellow and ruby red bunches hanging from date palms. Dates! Yes, I was eyeing succulent dates hanging like chandeliers from the date palms. I wanted the ruby red dates.

Historical significance
“Khalas,” Mazin smiled. Khalas? I knitted a brow. “Yes, khalas is the red date variety. Oman has nearly 250 varieties and nearly eight million date palms. Of course, the best dates are in Nizwa,” he threw the bait. In the Sultanate of Oman, Islam began in the ancient city of Nizwa, which is also known for its splendid 17th century fort and the souq. Nizwa was a two-hour drive, but for khalas, I was ready to saunter around the equator barefoot.

I thought I’d drive to a date farm, but when the car screeched to a halt in front of the Nizwa Fort, I was disheartened. Where are the dates? “Step in. Stand under the falling shaft,” Mazin instructed. There were no date palms; all I could see was a warren of dark staircases and stocky wooden doors with metal spikes looking ominous. Under my burgundy Oxford was a murder hole and above me a brass plaque with the words “The Falling Shaft” etched in black. A murder hole? A dingy staircase? I sure did not want to slither into the murder hole. “1, 2, 3…Here are the dates”. I closed my eyes and cowered under the imagined tumble of dates from the shaft. Minutes ticked, but there were no dates. But I heard the date story.

Yes, Nizwa is known for dates and in the 17th century fort built by Sultan in Saif Al Ya’rubi, boiling date syrup was poured from the shaft to quell the attacking force. I shuddered at the thought of using boiling hot date syrup as a weapon of war.

To market, to market
My date with the Omani date grew sweeter in the Date Souq, where the fruit seemed the monarch of all it surveyed. In the Abu Eyad Al Manthri shop, dates lay neatly stashed in large buckets and baskets. Date syrup, dates wrapped in chocolate, dates pounded with sesame. Dates. Dates. And more dates. In the next-door Halwa Souq (yes, there is an entire market dedicated to halwa!), shiny silver and brass boxes were full to the gill with the traditional halwa laden with dates.

For the Omanis, dates are the perfect sugar substitute. There is nary an ounce of sugar in the traditional Omani coffee. They chew a date and then sip coffee — the two together making a heavenly cuppa. In Al Loomie, the mint-fresh restaurant in Muscat, Chef Salim Al Kalbani, turns the dates into a rose-shaped dessert and serves the risotto with a date on the side. He soaks dry dates and kneads the bread dough with the sweet water. On a good day, he even stuffs the dates with cheese and wraps them in bacon strips. One can also rustle a steaming, creamy, boozy and fruity pudding named date pain perdu.

So entwined are dates with the life of an Omani that the shoot of a date palm is ceremonially planted to commemorate the birth of a son. And when a date palm dies or falls sick with blight, the family laments as if a dear has departed. In Oman, date palm is not merely a tree; it is life’s mainstay.