272 FRUIT RECIPES 



or terminal bud of these palms, called the "cabbage," is 

 sweet, tender, and nutty, but it is too luxurious an article 

 of diet to be often indulged in, as its removal causes the 

 death of the tree. The ends of the leaf-stalks, however, are 

 almost identical in texture and flavour and are used as a 

 vegetable. 



With these points of similarity the general resemblance 

 in appearance and food values of the trees ceases for the 

 fruits borne by them are totally unlike in form and kind of 

 nutriment. The date's distinctive and preponderating 

 element is sugar; that of the cocoanut, oil. The small 

 proportion of fat contained in the date is chiefly in its 

 stones or pits which are sometimes roasted and ground for 

 use as a substitute for coffee and sometimes ground un- 

 roasted to secure the oil contained in them. The cake or 

 paste remaining from the latter process is given to camels 

 as food, as are also types of imperfect dates. The dates 

 themselves^when compressed in preparing tliem into dried 

 cakes for future use, give out a symip whichisused in cookery 

 like molasses, and the crushed fruit may be fermented for 

 date wine. So concentrated has nature made the food 

 value of the date, so powerful and readily carried a store- 

 house of energy, that in some countries the killing of a 

 date-palm is a criminal offence. It is true that dates 

 contain a very small per cent, of protein but their sugar is 

 in so pure and simple a form that they are readily digested 

 and when eaten with nuts to furnish the nitrogen and fat 

 the combination is an almost perfect food. 



More than one variety of date bears fruit. The wild 

 date of India, Phcenix sylvestris, is famed for its sugar 

 production as well as for its fruit. On the whole this fruit- 

 bearing palm is not as sensitive to cold as is the cocoanut 

 and grows luxuriantly in parts of Spain and Italy. It 

 begins to bear from about ten years old upward indefinitely, 



