Fruit of the week: Honey Red Dates

Name: Honey Red Dates

Brand: Ah Jiao

Place of Purchase: Uni-Mart Korean Grocery in Ames, Iowa

Country/Region of Origin: South Korea

 

Price in Iowa: $1.89 for 200 grams of fruit

Description: Big, sticky red raisins

Flavor: Very sweet, with a meaty, mealy flavor underneath

Aroma: They smell like honey

Texture/Mouth-feel: Sticky exterior, the skin is rigid with a good snap to it, the interior is mostly hollow.  Most of the fruit is attached to the skin.

Notes: I picked these up at the Korean grocery when I was stocking up on ginseng and Katsu sauce.  I knew that the flavor would be nothing like the actual fruit, but there were a number of varieties so I decided to try one.  They were very good.  This candied "date" is actually a dried jujube.  Typically in Korea, the candied variety is eaten with tea (or in tea), but there are a variety of other dishes that use the dried fruit (some sort of cake made from dried jujubes, tamarind, chilies and jaggery that sounds fantastic).  These were a nice treat, but I could only eat a few of them.  Very very sweet.