There are few ingredients that manage to be both ancient and utterly modern at once, but the date is one of them. Sticky, deeply sweet and rich with caramel undertones, it has sustained civilisations across the desert regions of the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years, and yet it feels perfectly at home in the most contemporary of kitchens today, tucked into energy balls or folded through a sharp winter salad. The date palm is thought to have been cultivated f