Date honey (silan)

Silan — date honey, dibs in Arabic — is a thick, dark, glossy sweetener made from ripe dates, the colour of dark amber to near-black and the consistency of runny honey or molasses. The most traditional silan is not boiled at all but pressed: ripe soft dates are heaped and left to weep their own dense syrup under their weight, or gently warmed and pressed, so what is collected is the pure honey-like essence of the fruit. Deeply sweet, rounded and faintly bitter, with the raisiny, toffee richness of the date itself, it is one of the oldest sweeteners of the Levant and Mesopotamia — drizzled over labneh and tahini, folded into cakes and stews, and spooned over bread for breakfast.