International Date Palm Festival

Only three months ago, dates were a novelty -- an incredibly sweet dried fruit bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the cockroaches we came to know and fear in Charlotte.  Things are different now.  We were greeted at our hotel with a platter of dates and received a date on our pillow every night.  The grocery stores have date counters at least as large as the meat counters.  The traditional diet of the area was camel's milk and dates, and while Abu Dhabi has moved on from this monotonous diet, dates are still a very big part of the culture.  So it only makes sense that our new home would play host to an international date palm festival.

The festival felt like a trade convention, rather than what we expected - an elaborate event aimed at hawking extra dates to awed tourists (in fact, we seemed to be among the few tourists there).  There were booths from all over the region: Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and many others.  The dates at each booth had different tastes, textures, and even looked quite different (though they were all overpoweringly sweet).

Our favorite booth had an elaborate exhibit on date palm pests, and potential remedies. It was staffed by a jovial professor who plied us with what he proclaimed were especially special dates, and who (it turned out) occupied a date palm chair at a Saudi Arabian university.

Of course, there were some beautiful date pies...

 
...and even a palm with its trunk and soil made out of dates.

We may be date-saturated for the time being. But when we're ready for some more, we now know which grocery store stocks the best kinds.