Barhi date

The Barhi is the date you eat like a fruit. Small, round and thin-skinned, it is the variety prized above all for the brief, crunchy khalal stage, when the fruit is a bright amber-yellow, crisp like a fresh apple and sweet with only a whisper of the astringency that grips most unripe dates. Sold still attached to its golden strands in heavy hanging clusters, it is snapped off and eaten out of hand — a sugary, juicy, almost candy-like crunch — and then, as the same fruit softens and browns into the rutab stage, it turns to a yielding, caramel-rich, butterscotch flesh. Barhi is the rare date enjoyed across its whole ripening, from crisp yellow to soft amber-brown.