Emirates International Date Palm Festival details announced

Name a tree and learn how to cook with their fruit at festival.

A professional date harvester, Kareem, shows how to cut a palm to preserve it at last year's Emirates International Date Palm Festival.

ABU DHABI // Residents will be able to name and plant a tree destined for public spaces at next month's Emirates International Date Palm Festival.

The exhibition will also feature celebrity chefs including Manal Al Alem, who hosts a cooking show on Abu Dhabi TV; Suzanne Husseini, the author of When Suzanne Cooks; Khaled Arif, the host of the live cook-off show The Competition; and Khuloud Atiq Saeed, an Emirati speciality chef at Dubai's Mina Al Salam hotel.

They will show visitors how to cook modern and traditional recipes using dates.

A heritage village will include demonstrations of traditional Emirati dancing, poems and handicrafts.

Organised by the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority, the event will be held at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre from November 21 to 26 alongside the Salon International de l'Agroalimentaire (International Food Industry Exhibition).

Mohamed Jalal Al Reyaysa, the chairman of the festival's organising committee, said he expected the new activities to draw "huge interest from exhibitors and visitors".

This year's festival is expected to host 200 exhibitors, twice as many as last year, from 17 countries including Jordan, Iraq, Oman, Morocco and Iran.

Entry will be Dh10.