Jujubes ( Ziziphus jujuba) are a tree fruit known variously as jujube, red date, Chinese date, or Chinese apple. They are cultivated and highly sought after in China, and in other Asian and Indian cultures.
The center of origin of jujube is the area of North Africa to Syria and then east to China. Jujubes are a favorite fruit for Asian peoples. Anecdotally, the fruit is eaten to increase strength, extend life, increase energy flow,and increase stamina, but with the caution that too many “make men too robust.”
Jujubes are eaten as an immature fruit or as a dried fruit. In the immature green-ripe stage, the fruit are eaten as an apple. In the green-ripe stage the fruits are crisp, crunchy, sweet and slightly astringent. The fruit is most flavorful when a slight creamy, yellow-white cast with a blush of rusty-red shows and mahoganycolored spots appear on the skin. Shape of the fruit varies by tree and variety, and the size may be small as an olive while others are larger and shaped like a date.
When fruits are left on the tree to fully ripen, or if sun-ripened, they turn a deep rusty-red mahogany color. The skin wrinkles as fruits dehydrate, the pulp becomes softer and slightly mucilaginous, and the sweetness intensifies. At this stage soup can be made by boiling the dried fruits and separating the seeds from the pulp. The juice is either consumed straight away or mixed with rice.
Fruits are high in vitamins A, B2 and C; minerals calcium, iron, manganese, phosphorous and potassium and the micronutrients zinc and copper; oleanolic and oleanonic acids; antioxidants jujuboside, rutin and scopoletin. Fructose and glucose are the major sugars, and they are a good source of dietary fiber (Tango Advanced Nutrition, Inc.; Li et al. 2007. Food Chemistry 103(2):454-460).
In traditional Asian herbal medicine, jujubes are used as tonics to calm the stomach. They are said to calm the spirit and nourish the blood. One of its most popular uses is as a tea for sore throat. A paste made from the red-ripe fruits are good as demulcents, substances that soothe irritated or inflamed skin or mucous membranes. The jujubes provide a soothing film, which forms over a mucus membrane, relieving minor pain and inflammation by coating the throat and relieving irritation causing a dry cough (www.botanical.com).
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
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