The humble date headlines a gorgeous new cookbook

Nature's candy. That's what dates are often called. The cultivation of the fruit grown on tall date palm trees stretches back thousands of years. They're also an incredibly tasty snack. Now, they finally have their own book, and it's beautiful, filled with lovely drawings. Rawaan Alkhatib is the author  and illustrator of Hot Date: Sweet and Savory Recipes Celebrating the Date, From Party Food to Everyday Feasts. 

Evan Kleiman: I'm so glad you came to talk to us about this book. It's so beautiful. We all love the pink edges on the paper.

Rawaan Alkhatib: Me too. That was one of the many reasons I wanted to work with Chronicle Books, actually, because they make such beautiful books, and the pink edges were one of the first things we talked about. 

You're a writer, an artist and a really fantastic illustrator. How did you end up creating a cookbook all about dates?

Well, I mean, I love dates. Maybe that's the best place to start. I think they're an unsung fruit here in the US but a fruit that has a really deep history and reverence [and] also something that people eat every day across the world. It seemed strange to me that there wasn't anything focused on dates here. 

Also, I'm a poet. I love a constraint. Working on a single subject cookbook felt like writing one very long sonnet or something where you had to take a single taste, a single fruit and really examine it from every possible angle. It seemed like a really fun challenge, both visually, in terms of flavor, in terms of the different capacities that a date could handle, sweet and savory, not just filled with peanut butter and coated in chocolate, but all kinds of different approaches.

"Hot Date: Sweet and Savory Recipes Celebrating the Date, From Party Food to Everyday Feasts" ventures beyond the traditional recipes across the Middle East. Photo courtesy of Chronicle.

You were born and raised in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, so you grew up in a date-centric culture. How were dates incorporated into the meals you and your family ate as you grew up?

You know, there are a lot of traditional regional recipes across the Middle East that use dates in all kinds of different ways but the most common way that you would eat a date is just out of hand during Ramadan. They're a huge focus of every meal because you break your fast with a date, so they're particularly present during that month. But they're just around. 

My parents grow dates in their garden. Their dates are really the only things that grow super well, though. My dad keeps trying all kinds of different fruit. But during date season, our neighbors would send over stocks of halawi dates, which are the ones that are still kind of crunchy and not fully soft and sweet yet. You get sent those by your neighbors who are growing them on the tree. Or my dad would bring them into work, or we would share them with our school friends. It's a desert, and so not much grows there, but dates do, and they have a lot of weight and meaning because of that. 

Barhi dates grow on a date ranch in Thermal, California. Photo by Elina Shatkin/KCRW

Coming from Southern California and being adjacent to deserts where dates grow, I've always thought that dates were so magical because they look so humble. Some people might think they're not very pretty yet they have so many different kinds of textures and amounts of sweetness and they're so satisfying to eat. Can you talk to us about a few different varieties? Here we know about medjool, deglet noor, barhi and a few others. But in your book, you list no less than 58 kinds of dates. Can you walk us through some of them?

Sure I'd be so happy to. I'm amazed that you counted them up! That 58, I should note, are just a fraction of the dates that are commercially grown across the world. One of my favorite varieties is the khalas date that grows across the European Peninsula. Khalas means "quintessential." They're considered the crème de la crème of date varieties. There's something about them. When you eat them, there's nothing but date there. 

I love the black gold date that's grown out in California. There's a farmer named Sam Cobb who grows this varietal. They only grow on his farms. They taste a little chocolatey, a little coffee. There's something else there that you can't put your finger on. Everyone who tastes them is like, "What is that? Is that cherry? Is that molasses?" It's there. Really incredible. And they're grown out in the Coachella Valley. 

Ajwa dates, you can get them in grocery stores across the US, but they come from Medina in Saudi Arabia. They were considered the Prophet Muhammad's favorite date, and are revered for that reason. They're also very delicious. They taste a little more raisiny. The flesh is drier. There's almost a hint of licorice there. They're very small, dark, black flesh dates. There's a bit of lore attached to them. There's a saying that if you eat seven ajwa dates every day, you will not be harmed on that day by poison or witchcraft. So if you have any days that you really need things to work out, get yourself seven ajwa dates, and you're golden.

It's like an inoculation.

Yes, exactly. Just a little jolt of good luck, a little boost.

Why dates? "They're an unsung fruit here in the US but a fruit that has a really deep history and reverence," says Rawaan Alkhatib. Photo by Linda Xiao.

Where are we more likely to find some of these types of dates that we wouldn't normally find in a supermarket? In local Middle Eastern neighborhoods and small grocers?

Absolutely. The best place to look for them would be your local Middle Eastern grocery store or grocery stores that carry a range of foods from across the world. There are stores here in New York City, like Kalustyan's, that carry a lot of Indian foods, but then they would also carry dates. The best times to go looking for different date varieties, most stores that stock them would stock them year round, but Ramadan, which this year starts in late February/early March, is a time when they definitely stock up. 

Another good time to go look for dates is in the early fall, when the date harvest is brought in. So if they are going to have fresh dates, they would either have them in late summer, when they're crunchy, like the barhis that you might find in California at the farmers market. We don't get those in the farmers markets here in Brooklyn, unfortunately, but our Middle Eastern grocery stores will carry them.

A good time to go look for dates is in the early fall, when the date harvest is brought in. Papercut by Rawaan Alkhatib.

What is a quintessential date recipe from your book? I'm gonna give you a hint of what I'm thinking, the one-ingredient date jam.

That's a really wonderful place to start. All you have in there are dates, a little bit of water, and, if you want, salt. But you could make the jam with just dates. And it starts to get at the different qualities of the different varieties you use. You could pick up a bunch of dates at the grocery store that have already been labeled with the variety type and make this jam, and it will be delicious. But if you are in a position to find a bunch of sukkari dates, which have this beautiful salted caramel aspect to them, cooking them down really helps release that flavor and changes the texture. The adjwas that I was talking about earlier, that have that licorice and anisey quality to them, by cooking them and making this jam, you capture that flavor and really get at the essence of what they are.

You say that the black dessert cake is pretty bonkers. What do you mean by that? 

I called it a Black Desert Cake because I wanted to riff on the idea of a black forest cake. That was the starting point for it. I wanted something chocolatey and celebratory. Maybe it's growing up in the '80s and '90s, I really associate the idea of a Black Forest Cake with a celebration. So I was like, what's a party cake? We need a big, fun, party cake. This one is covered in halva floss, so it looks like a shaggy rug. It's got this pelt, this very exuberant pelt all over it, and chocolate curls, and it's studded with date halves. Then you slice into it, and it's got all this whipped cream, and the layers of cake are soaked in a coffee syrup that also has cardamom and saffron. Because, of course, we started with black forest but then it went on a few detours and ended up in the desert. 

I pulled the flavors from qahwa, which is the coffee that's served across the Arabian Peninsula in a lot of different varieties. It's a green roasted coffee with saffron and cardamom in it, and a little bit of rose water, often. I wanted to get all of those flavors in there playing with the chocolate. The first time I made it was for my partner's birthday. It's this big, boisterous cake. If you really want to have a good time with your dates, I would recommend it. 

This Black Desert Cake is covered in halva floss, so it looks like a shaggy rug. Photo by Linda Xiao.

Wow, what a good salesman you are. Now, let's turn to something savory and vegetarian. 

So the Rutab & Summer Tomatoes with Sizzling Brown Butter is one of my favorite dishes. It's a savory vegetarian dish that has very few ingredients in it but when you put them all together, they make something that is very surprising, extremely Moorish. The times that I've made this and sat down with one friend and one baguette and we've polished the whole thing off and not realized that we're doing it, are many times. 

All you do is you take a bunch of date halves, the softer and squishier, the better. Put them on a platter. You get your tomatoes. It's best with summer tomatoes but you can use them all year round. I've made this in deep winter with cherry tomatoes from the grocery store, and it still tastes delicious. You scatter them across the plate. You heat up some butter until it's browned and nutty and smells incredible and it's sizzling ever so slightly. Add a little bit of hot sauce. I use Yuzu Kosho in the recipe but you can use any hot sauce. Then you drizzle that warm butter all over the tomatoes and the dates so they sizzle slightly, and just let them sit for a minute, and that's it. 

It's insane. 

It's so good. I hope you try it and tell me if you do, because it may be the recipe I'm most proud of in the book.

I also have used dates when I make stews for Jewish holidays, for example, and I want to add a sweet and sour element. Sometimes I'll add orange slices and I'll add whole dates to the meat. I noticed that you also do that. You have a 13-Hour Lamb with Date and Feta Relish. Can you talk about that?

Yes. I should start out by saying that 13-hour lamb is mostly there, so if you make this for guests, you can tell them, "I cooked this for 13 hours. You're welcome." It sounds really good, and you absolutely can stick it in the oven at 250 degrees, overnight, and just go to bed, wake up in the morning, and you have this very soft, luscious lamb. You can also put it in there at a slightly higher temperature, and it will not take 13 hours. But it's a good slow-cooking, puttering around on a Sunday type of dish. 

It's a very savory lamb. I deliberately didn't have anything sweet in that part of it because the date and feta relish really animates it when you put them together. The recipe has you build a little sandwich. You can have your fellow diners build the sandwiches for themselves or make on your own. You shred the lamb, crisp it up a little bit, and pile it onto a soft, pillowy bun with this date and feta relish. The sweetness really makes the savoriness of the lamb sing. They're such good companions. And the salty feta makes for something very Moorish.

I'm intrigued by the drink Jallab. Tell me about that.

That is a very traditional drink. When I say traditional, I mean across the Middle East, date-growing regions, and elsewhere. It's one that a lot of people will associate with Ramadan, because it's often drunk to quench thirst and rehydrate. But you can drink it all year round. I just have so many good associations with a really hot day and you get this tall glass and fill it with crushed ice, date molasses, cold, cold water, a bit of rose water, and then you sprinkle in pine nuts and raisins and stir it all up, and it's just a really, really satisfying thing to drink.

I have to say, we have barely scratched the surface of the amazingly delicious ideas you have for what to do with dates and the beauty of the book. Thank you so much.