CHAPTER X 



ARTIFICIAL RIPENING 



From the dawn of history crude methods of 

 artificial ripening have been practised on the date. 

 The Arab sometimes takes a bundle of nettles or 

 thorny twigs and beats a green cluster of dates with 

 it; the perforation of the skin sets up a fermentation 

 in each berry which, to an Arab palate, quickly 

 makes it ripe enough to eat. Again, he cuts partly 

 through the stem of the cluster, and by thus shutting 

 off some of the nutrition supplied to the dates causes 

 them to ripen prematurely. 



The process is oftener applied after the dates 

 have been picked. Indeed, the immense quantities 

 of boiled dates sold in the Persian Gulf region and 

 India are really only dates that have been ripened 

 artificially. They are taken while still hard and nearly 

 green, and boiled for an hour or more. If astringent, 

 a large handful of salt is added to each gallon of water. 

 Then they are dried for eight or ten days in the sun, 

 and are ready for use. In some regions, after boiling 

 they are fried in oil. This renders them hard, and 

 usually there is some astringency left, but in the most 

 satisfactory cases the flavor is nutty and crisp, or 

 sometimes very much like maple sugar. Dates in 

 this condition will keep for a year or more.* 



In the Sindh desert green dates are "ripened" 

 by a quick process, being packed tightly in jars of 



*Dates so prepared are called kharak pokhta (Pers.) or 

 khalal matbukh (Arab.), both of which mean "boiled, unripe dates"; 

 or in India, bhugrian or chuhara. 



