There’s a great joke in an even greater movie, a classic work by an utterly influential artiste. Anyway, in the joke, this guy is talking to a girl he likes at a party and he lists off all these fantastic foreign foods that are sitting on the buffet, including dates.  And he offers her a plate and says, “Would you like a date?”  “Sure,” she replies, reaching for it.  He pulls the plate away.  “How about next Thursday”  Hahahahahah.  That, my dear friends, is the genius work of Mel Brooks in his cinematic masterpiece Robin Hood:Men in Tights.

That joke is what I’m always reminded of when I think about dates, the fruit.  If you’ve never had a date, they are these delicious little elongated fruits that come from a tree called a date palm, indigenous to the Middle East.  You can usually find them dried, sometimes pitted and bagged in the grocery store.  They are delicious in savory and sweet dishes and are often the base for various healthy snackbars, like Lärabars or Youbars.  In fact, those very bars are the inspiration for these little snackables.  Continue reading →