This date left me with a bad taste.

May 29, 2009 1:23 PM

What's up with funky-tasting dates?

I recently bought a 5lb bag of dates, and have found that about one in eight has a weird marzipan/tangy/nasty flavor. After the first two, I noticed that these dates have a black powdery substance inside them..

Is this mold? And how is it that it's only on the inside - externally, they look like the good-tasting dates.

posted by unmake to food & drink (3 comments total)

Via this exhaustive article on date palms, could it be:

Black scald, different from blacknose, is a minor disorder of unknown cause occurring in the United States (Djerbi, 1983). It consists of a blackened and sunken area with a defi nite line of demarcation. The disease usually appears on the tip or the sides of the fruit, and affected tissues have a bitter taste. The appearance of the disorder suggests exposure to high temperature, but the exact cause is not definitely known (Nixon, 1951).

Not your exact criteria, but mentions the taste.
posted by Nomiconic at 1:42 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]

I will be following this with great interest. My shock at biting into a date with moldy-looking black powder inside triggered a panic attack few years ago. I was too busy thinking I was going into anaphylactic shock to notice the flavor, but it definitely looked fine on the outside, just like yours. Definitely would like to know what that actually was.
posted by crinklebat at 7:35 PM on May 29

Here's a photo of what I'm talking about.
posted by unmake at 2:07 PM on May 30