Silan

Date honey, the oldest sweetener of the Levant and Mesopotamia, made by simmering whole dates to a pulp, pressing out the liquid, and reducing it to a dark and glossy syrup

Origin: Jericho and the Jordan Valley

From the journey of Date.

Before sugar there was this. Silan in Hebrew and dibs al-tamr in Arabic is date syrup, and it was the principal sweetener of Mesopotamia and the Levant for several thousand years before cane reached either. Akkadian used one word, dišpu, for the syrup of the date and the honey of the bee alike, which is why the honey of the biblical land flowing with milk and honey is very widely understood to be this and not the product of a hive. The Jordan Valley is the place to name it from. Jericho is called the city of palm trees in the Hebrew Bible, its oasis and the shores of the Dead Sea grew the most valuable dates in the Roman world, and the palm was so identified with the province that Rome put it on the coins struck to mark the crushing of the Jewish revolt. The method has not changed and cannot be improved on: dates are covered with water, simmered until they collapse, and the liquid pressed out through cloth and reduced. Nothing is added. What comes out is between a treacle and a runny honey, with a flavour of caramel and raisin and a faint bitterness at the end that keeps it from being cloying. It is a daily ingredient across the region rather than a curiosity. In Palestine and Israel it goes over tahini as a two-ingredient breakfast, into salad dressings, and over roasted vegetables and lamb. In Iraq it is poured on bread and stirred into cracked wheat. In Libya it is spooned over assida, and in Egypt over rice pudding.

Ingredients

Fruit

  • 1 kg dates, stoned (Deglet Nour, Zahidi or any firm variety)

Liquid

  • 2 litres water

Optional

  • 1 strip lemon peel, optional

Method

  1. Stone the dates and chop them roughly. Put them in a large heavy pan with the water and leave them to soak for an hour.
  2. Bring slowly to a simmer and cook uncovered for forty-five minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally and crushing the fruit against the side of the pan, until the dates have entirely collapsed into a coarse brown pulp.
  3. Line a colander with a double layer of muslin, set it over a large bowl, and pour in the pulp. Let it drip for thirty minutes, then gather the cloth and squeeze firmly to press out everything you can.
  4. Return the strained liquid to the cleaned pan, add the lemon peel if using, and simmer gently, uncovered, for a further forty-five minutes to an hour, until it has reduced by about two thirds and coats the back of a spoon thickly.
  5. Discard the lemon peel. Pour the hot syrup into a warmed, sterilised jar and seal.
  6. Serve stirred into tahini in equal parts as a breakfast spread, over yoghurt or rice pudding, whisked into a dressing with lemon and olive oil, or brushed over lamb or roast carrots in the last minutes of cooking.

Notes

A kilogram of dates gives roughly 500 to 600 ml of syrup, depending on the variety and how hard the pulp is pressed. The pressed pulp is not waste. It still holds a good deal of flavour and can be worked into a loaf, a flapjack, or an animal feed, which is what it has always been used for in the date regions. Commercial date syrup is often thinned with glucose or water. A home batch is markedly darker and thicker, and the difference is obvious side by side. The Iraqi habit of stirring silan into tahini is the parent of the Israeli and Palestinian breakfast version; the same pairing appears with grape molasses in Turkey, where pekmez and tahini are eaten in exactly the same way.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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