Your Mystery Date

Allow us to indulge our inner aunties: We’ve set you up on a really
hot date this episode—with one of nature’s sweetest fruits, the
date! Adored by pleasure-seekers and paleo dieters alike, dates are
a Christmas baking standby, and the first bite when breaking fast
during Ramadan. These fudgy, caramelly, brown-buttery fruits are so
important in their Arab homelands that they're known as the "bread
of the desert" and thought to be the tree of life in the Garden of
Eden story. We reveal why this episode, plus we've also got the
story of how a Native American couple in Nevada may have saved the
Medjool date for the world, as well as how California built an
Orientalist fantasy around its burgeoning date industry, complete
with Wild East shows, hoochie-coochie dances, and camel races. All
that, as well as the squidgy, soft, and oh-so-sweet dates you've
been missing out on—and why you might want to play the field a
little in future, at least when it comes to dates. Learn more about
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