Alisha Taff grew up visiting her mother's friends, the kind of households where children get spoiled with something sweet before they leave. What she got was jujubes. She says they were just sweet enough to be considered candy in her eyes. She had no idea at the time that she was eating a fruit people have been cultivating for 4,000 years.
Alisha grows jujubes now at Rock Front Ranch in Santa Barbara County at the gateway of the Cuyama Valley. She is out among the forest, wildflowers and desert rock at sunrise, tending them by hand.
If you have never held a jujube, its size is something between a cherry and a small plum. The skin is thin and edible, while the inside is a pale, crisp flesh and one hard pit you eat around, the way you would with an olive. The Cuyama Valley suits them well because the days run hot and the evenings pull in a breeze off the ocean, and that swing between temperatures is what pushes the fruit to develop its sugars on the tree.
Jujubes are also unusually undemanding. They are drought resistant and sip water rather than gulp it. They are also hardy and resistant to many pests and diseases, which means nothing needs spraying, and the ranch is bordered on all sides by the Los Padres National Forest, where spraying is prohibited anyway. In 2023, the Regenerative Agriculture Center at Chico State recognized Rock Front Ranch through its Mentor Farm Program.
A jujube ripens through stages you can see. It starts green, turns yellow-green with mahogany freckling, then goes fully red-brown. Shortly after it turns red, it begins to soften and wrinkle. Most people prefer it before the wrinkling starts, somewhere between yellow-green and full red, when the flesh is dense and crisp and snaps like an apple. The flavor at that stage is sweet with a little tartness behind it. Let it go further and the sugars concentrate, the texture turns chewy, and it tastes like a date with brown sugar in it. Choosing which stage to eat it at comes down to personal preference.
One quick tip: A jujube picked green will not ripen on your counter. Eating them takes no preparation at all. Rinse and bite, working around the pit, or slice the fruit lengthwise and the pit comes out clean. From there they hold their shape, which makes them useful sliced into a salad, chopped over yogurt or oatmeal, or cooked down with apples and vinegar into a chutney. Dried, they steep into a good tea with a little ginger.
However you eat them, you will land where Alisha did as a child, holding something that tastes like it should have come in a wrapper. ⚘
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Farm Fresh To You members: Head on over to our online Farm Stand Market to customize your upcoming delivery. Market is open from noon on Thursday until 6 p.m. on your cutoff date. After you confirm your produce items, click the orange button "Confirm and Continue To Other Farm Products" to add the products to your delivery.
Photos: Rock Front Ranch
