Doum nut and tree

Hyphaene thebaica

  

The Doum Fruit

Doum nut, also spelled dhoum nut, the nut of the doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica), native to Upper Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania. Also called the gingerbread palm, the 15.2-metre (50-foot) tree has a slender trunk and smooth branches, each tipped with a rosette of small, stiff, green, fanlike leaves.

The flavour of the red-orange fruit is frequently likened to that of gingerbread. The nut is eaten raw, and the rind from the seeds is made into sweetmeats and molasses. The groundnuts are used to dress wounds. Vegetable ivory, the hard white part of the nut, takes a high polish and is used as a substitute for ivory, especially in the manufacture of buttons. Leaves of the doum palm are used for cordage, mats, and inferior paper. Doum nuts have been found in 5,000-year-old Egyptian tombs.

Fruit layers

Hyphaene thebaica, with common names doum palm (Ar: دوم) and gingerbread tree (also doom palm), is a type of palm tree with edible oval fruit. It is a native to the Arabian Peninsula and also to the northern half of Africa where it is widely distributed and tends to grow in places where groundwater is present. It has been shown that dietary supplementation with doum palm extract has hypotensive and hypolipidemic effects.

Description

Doum Tree

The doum palm is a dioecious palm and grows up to 17 m (56 ft) high. The trunk, which can have a girth of up to 90 cm (35 in), branches dichotomously and has tufts of large leaves at the ends of the branches. The bark is fairly smooth, dark grey and bears the scars of fallen leaves. The petioles (leaf stalks) are about a meter long, sheathing the branch at the base and armed with stout upward-curving claws. The leaves are fan shaped and measure about 120 by 180 cm (47 by 71 in). Male and female flowers are produced on separate trees. The inflorescences are similar in general appearance, up to about 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) long, branching irregularly and with two or three spikes arising from each branchlet. Female trees produce large woody fruits, each containing a single seed that remain on the tree for a long period.

Distribution and habitat

Doum typical habitat

The doum palm is native to the northern half of Africa. It is widespread in the Sahel and grows from Mauritania and Senegal in the west, through Central Africa, and east to Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania. It tends to grow in areas where groundwater is present and is found along the Nile River in Egypt and Sudan, in riverside areas of northwestern Kenya, and along the Niger River in West Africa. It is also native to the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula (Israel, Sinai, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. and is reportedly naturalized in the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean It grows in wadis and at oases, but sometimes occurs away from water and on rocky hillsides. It dislikes waterlogged soils and is very resistant to destruction by bushfires.

Uses

Products from leaves and fibers

The doum palm flourishes in hot dry regions where little else grows and the tree is appreciated for the shade it provides. All parts of the tree are useful, but probably the most important product is the leaf. The fiber and leaflets are used by people along the Niger and Nile Rivers to weave baskets, such as in the material culture of the Manasir. Other things made from the leaves are mats, coarse textiles, brooms, ropes, string and thatch. The timber is used for posts and poles, furniture manufacture and beehives, and the tree provide wood for fuel. The leaf stalks are used for fencing and the fiber is used for textiles. Other products include fishing rafts, brooms, hammocks, carpets, buttons and beads.

Doum Fruits

Food

The doum palm fruit-dates are also known in Eritrea as Akat, or Akaat in the Tigre language. The thin dried brown rind is made into molasses, cakes, and sweetmeats. The unripe kernels are edible. The shoots of the germinated seeds are also eaten as a vegetable.

In Egypt, the fruit is sold in herbalist shops, and is popular among children, gnawing its sweet yet sour hard fibrous flesh beneath the shiny hard crust.

It is worth mentioning that street Vendors used to sell doum together with Carob, Pumpkin seeds and stick of molasses known as "Caca Chinois" in front for schools in Egypt.

Doum drink

 In Diu, Una and Saurashtra region of Gujarat (India), the tree is known as Hoka Tree and the red ripe edible fruit is known as Hoka. In northern part of Nigeria, among the Hausa people, it's known as "Goruba". Apart from the use of the fruit as food, juice is extracted from the young fruit and palm wine is prepared from the sap.

Medicinal uses

The fruit of the doum palm has been used in folk medicine to treat hypertension. In a trial, a group of patients with raised blood pressure were all given an antihypertensive drug but in half the individuals, this was supplemented with doum fruit extract. It was found that those receiving the supplement had lower systolic and diastolic pressures and lower total cholesterol, and the blood lipids and lipoproteins were changed in such a way as to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Carving on the Doum inner nut

Egyptian tombs

The Ancient Egyptians considered doum palm sacred, and the seed was found in many pharaoh's tombs. On September 24, 2007, it was announced that a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass, discovered eight baskets of 3,000-year-old doum fruit in King Tutankhamun's tomb. The fruit baskets were each 50 high, the antiquities department said. The fruit are traditionally offered at funerals.

Nayrouz the Coptic New Year

Egyptian Christians Celebrate Coptic New Year Nayrouz on September 11 corresponding to the first day of the Coptic month of "Thout" 

On that day, the Coptic Orthodox community a Christian minorities in Egypt, celebrates the beginning of the the new year according to the Coptic calendar, anno martyrum or AM (Latin for Era of the Martyrs). The Coptic New Year, Nayrouz, is celebrated on September 11 on the Gregorian calendar, except for the year preceding a leap year when it’s celebrated on September 12.

Nayrouz in Coptic

Based on the ancient Egyptian calendar the Coptic calendar has 13 months, 12 of 30 days each and one intercalary month at the end of the year of 5 days in length, except in leap years when the month is 6 days.

Inspired by the agriculture seasons of the Egyptian year, the calendar represents three main seasons; the flooding of the Nile, vegetation, and reaping and harvesting.

COPTIC MONTH

Tout: the deity of moon and wisdom
Baba: the journey of Amon from the Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple
Hathor: the deity of love and music
Kiahka: the deity of fertility
Toba: the deity of rain
Amshir: the deity of storms
Baramhat: the deity of the harvest
Baramouda: a feast for King Amenmhet I
Bashans: son of the moon god and a member of the Theban Trinity
Paona: the feast of the valley
Epep: the deity of chaos
Mesra: the birth of Ra
Nasie: a five-day month at the end of the year, with each day noting the birth of the five children of Nut: Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.

While Nayrouz is celebrated among Copts, and despite the calendar being associated to the Coptic year, outside the walls of church, modern day Egyptian farmers of all faiths and religions use the calendar as a basis for regulating the cycle of seeding and harvesting crops.

Foreign to the origins of the Gregorian calendar, the Coptic calendar’s months are named differently, starting with Tout and ending with Nasie.

Nayrouz, which is celebrated on the first day of Tout, commemorates the era of martyrdom that the Copts endured under the Roman emperor Diocletian circa 280 C.E, hence the naming of the calendar as Era of the Martyrs.

Red dates, symbolic of the martyrs' suffering,
are traditionally eaten during Nayrouz in Egypt

According to the Coptic tradition, Diocletian is narrated to have been infamous for torturing and executing thousands of Christians, unsuccessfully forcing them to deny their faith. Despite the great suffering, the Era of Martyrs is remembered as the Church’s strongest period due to its ability to withstand and survive the challenges unchanged.

Tertullian, a second century Western Church father states that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” which is a saying and concept that has been adopted by churches since then and until our current day.

The word Nayrouz that we know today has undergone many modifications. Originally, the word comes from the Coptic word ni-yarouou (translates to rivers). According to Nabil Farouq’s book النيروز: أقدم عيد لأقدم أمة (The Nayrouz Feast: Oldest Feast for the Oldest Nation), the suffix ous was added under the Hellenistic era.

By the time the Arabian culture had left its mark on the Egyptian society, the word ni-yarouous was thought to originate from the Persian New Year Nowruz, which translates to “new day” influencing the change of the suffix to ouz instead of ous. Its alterations and modifications made it to what is known today - Nayrouz.

Coptic Orthodox Christians, both in Egypt and abroad, culturally celebrate the New Year by eating red dates. The dates’ red exterior symbolizes the blood of the martyrs, the white insides represent the purity of their hearts and the seeds of the dates stand for the strength of their faith. Some also eat the guava fruit, which has similar symbolism as red dates.

The Martyrs

Deriving from the Church’s belief that the martyrs’ strength of faith is its foundation and core, the Coptic Christians relive the struggle of their ancestors through celebration and commemoration to remind themselves that these martyrs should not solely belong to the past, but ought to live on.

Original text by M. Kilada

Carob (Kharoub)

Carob is native to the eastern Mediterranean, probably the Middle East, where it has been in cultivation for at least 4000 years and well known to the Egyptians. Seeds of this plant were found far back in Greece and Italy.

Carob grows well anywhere that citrus is grown, and it prefers dry climates that receive more than 30 centimetres of rainfall--ideal Mediterranean-type climates.

The fruit of carob is a pod, technically a legume 15 to 30 centimetres in length and fairly thick and broad.

CAROB - خروب

Pods are borne on the old stems of the plant on short flower stalks. Interestingly, most carob trees are monoecious, with individual male and female flowers.

History

Carob is a species that has a long history of use by humans. Other names commonly used for Carob are St John's Bread and Locust. Legend has it that St John ate the pods of this species and hence the name.

That story was apparently wrong--he ate migratory locust. Seeds were used to weight gold, hence the word "carat." Mohammed's army ate kharoub , and Arabs planted the crop in northern Africa and Spain (Moors), along with citrus (Citrus ) and olives (Olea).

Spaniards carried carob to Mexico and South America, and the British took carob to South Africa, India, and Australia.

Records show that carob was intentionally introduced into the United States in 1854, and the first seedlings were apparently planted in California in 1873. For commercial production cultivars with the finest quality fruits are bud grafted on common stock.

Evidence of the use of Carob products by humans date back to ancient Greece and Egypt where the plant was used as a source of food.

CAROB FRUIT 

The seeds from the Carob tree are extremely consistent in size and weight and are believed to have been the original gauge for the 'carat' used by jewelers.

The species itself is ancient having survived the last ice age and flourished throughout the Mediterranean region since. It is well adapted to harsh climates and poor soils. Throughout its natural range the species has been widely cultivated because of its reliability as a food and fuel resource even during times of drought.

Description: The carob tree is a slow growing; medium sized evergreen tree originating in the eastern Mediterranean. It is a member of the Legume (Pea) family and is the only member of the genus Ceratonia. It is a xerophilous scleophphyllous species well suited to dry infertile environments. The species is trioecious with male, female and hermaphrodite inflorescences and is often multi stemmed growing up to 15 meters in height. The production of fruit begins around the age of 15 and continues for the life of the plant. The leaves are broad, dark green and offering substantial shade. The pods are long and leathery often growing up to 300mm long.

Carob Products

Carob is a highly versatile and useful tree to humans as there are a wide range of products derived from its fruits and timber. Primarily, foods for both human and animal consumption are obtained from its seeds, pulp and seed pods. Every part of the fruit can be consumed. However food is not the only product supplied by this species.

Carob in Food

The dark-brown pods are not only edible, but also rich in sucrose (almost 40% plus other sugars) and protein (up to 8%).

Health Food

The fruits of the Carob tree can be eaten either green or after having been processed. The Inside the seedpod there is up to 15 seeds surrounded by a saccharine pulp. The seeds are separated from the pulp and used to make locust bean gum sometimes known as Ceratonia or Carob bean gum.

This product is used in the manufacture of foodstuffs, especially confectionary. It is used as a stabilizer, emulsifier, and thickener or to prevent sugar crystallization. The other major food source derived from Carob is from the ground up pod itself, which forms a high protein powder that is an effective substitute for Cocoa powder.

Carob powder has a number of advantages over Cocoa powder and as such is often used to make what has come to be known as 'healthy chocolate’.

Cairo Streets Carob Vendor

Although this product has a slightly different taste than chocolate, it has only one-third the calories (total 1595 calories per pound), is virtually fat-free (chocolate is half fat), is rich in pectin, is non allergenic, has abundant protein, and has no oxalic acid, which interferes with absorption of calcium.

Consequently, carob flour is widely used in health foods for chocolate-like flavoring.

A very fine polysaccharide gum--mucilaginous, odorless, tasteless, and colorless--can also be obtained from the pod and is now used in many products.

Carob powder

Carob powder is free of the allergenic and addictive effects of caffeine and theobromine present in Cocoa. It also contains less fat and more sugar than Cocoa. Cocoa has around 23% fat and 5% sugar while Carob contains approximately 7% fat and 42-48% sugar. Carob powder is often used as a substitute for cocoa at rates of up to 50%.

Used in this manner Carob has become a popular chocolate substitute used in a huge variety of confectionery products and drinks as well as a general sweetener. Carob is also used to make flour, molasses, alcohol and a substitute for coffee and eggs.

Carob and Health

Apart from the health benefits obtained by substituting Carob for Cocoa and synthetic sweeteners in our diet, Carob also has excellent nutritional value. Along with up to 80% protein, it contains Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, Phosphorus, Potassium Manganese, Barium, Copper, Nickel and the vitamins A, B, B2, B3, and D. It also has medicinal uses including the treatment of coughs and diarrhoea.

Other Products and Uses

While food production is a very important characteristic of this species it is by no means the only benefit that can be obtained from growing Carob. These include: Tannin is obtained from the bark of Carob.

Cosmetic face packs are made from flour made from the seedpods.

The wood is hard and highly sought after by wood turners.

It is a nitrogen fixing species, providing improvements to soil fertility.

There are also several putative medicinal uses of the plant, and singers formerly chewed the pod husks in the belief that this clears the throat and voice.

Growing Carob Trees

Grows well on low rainfall marginal land and is used for land amelioration. Prior to planting Carob, pre-soak the seed in warm water for approximately 24hrs. This species prefers sandy loams, medium loam and clay loam soils but can tolerate poorer soil conditions including rocky areas. Good drainage and full to semi-sun is also preferred if the species is to grow well. Carob will tolerate pH in the range 6.2 to 8.6.

This species is extremely drought resistant and irrigation is not required. It is also free of many pests and diseases, however it is susceptible to Texas Root Rot. After the plant has established itself it requires little maintenance except form pruning to encourage a single stem if required.

Pods

A cold Carob drink

The pods are collected when brown, they are broken open and the hard seeds removed. The empty pods are then washed, dry roasted to inactivate enzymes that would break the product down and then milled like wheat to a very fine brown powder, which is naturally sweet. This fine powder can be used the same as you would use cocoa and you will need less sugar.

To make the powder into its No Added Sugar chocolate form, it is basically mixed with skim milk powder, a vegetable oil, and soy lecithin. This makes the solid carob.

Carob is caffeine free, oxalic acid free and no theobromine, thenylthylamine and tyramine, known to trigger headaches and migraines in some people.

Pods What happens to the seeds?

CARAT

The seeds have a history of their own. The seed looks very much like a large watermelon seed. There about eight seeds to a pod. The gum they contain was used by the Egyptians for binding their mummies.

The Italians use the seed to make rosary beads. In Israel they have an annual Carob Festival. This seed was also used as a weight measure for gold and gems because seeds are very even in weight.

That use has come down through the centuries as the 'caret weight' (should be carob weight) and 0. 5 carob seeds equals one gram. A caret weights .02 gram.

The uses of the gum today are in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, industrial oils and food thickening. It is called the locus bean gum. The timber of the carob tree makes beautiful furniture.

The Carob Tree

Carob tree

The carob tree is a Mediterranean plant. It has existed for over 4000 years.

It is a legume, evergreen and a beautiful shade tree and takes 20 years to reach its full height, which is 50ft (over 15 mt) high and 50ft (over 15 mt)  wide, with a taproot up to 125ft (38 mt). In places like Egypt, where the water is mainly underground, that long taproot has allowed the carob trees to survive.

The surface root system never goes beyond the leaf canopy.

The tree takes up to 8 years to produce a crop of pods, 15 years to produce a commercial size crop, but by 20 years can produce up to a tone in one season. It will continue to produce for up to 200 years and only the female trees in the wild, produce pods.

In commercial cultivation the trees are grafted male and female together so every tree produces a crop. Bees do the pollination as the masses of small cluster flowers offer large amounts of nectar as incentive.