National Date Festival
Indio, California, is known for its dates — the luscious dried fruit grown atop those towering date palms originally imported from the Middle East. The annual National Date Festival (now in its 64th year) will be held February 12-21, 2010, at the Riverside County Fairgrounds, 82-503 U.S. Highway 111, Indio, California. It’s a high-profile ten-day event including food (highlighting dates, of course), music, carnival rides, exhibits and more (well, it’s also the 2010 Riverside County Fair).
Best-known date grower in Indio is Shields Date Garden, 80-225 U.S. Highway 111. If you haven’t stopped in to see the 15-minute film “Romance and Sex Life of the Date”, Road Trips Foodies, you’ve definitely missed a special treat! (Do try their date shakes, too.) Floyd and Bess Shields founded the company in 1924.
Here’s a recipe from the Shields Date Garden collection for Banana-Date Bread:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup date pieces
1 cup bananas, mashed
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
2 eggs, well-beaten
Mix the date pieces into the mashed banana. Cream the butter with the sugar, then add the beaten eggs. Combine the two mixtures and stir well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together, then blend into creamed mixture. Scoop into a loaf pan and bake one hour at 350 degrees.
