@Embeddable
public class FooEnum
{
  public enum MyEnum { VALUE1, VALUE2 };
  private Date start;
  private Date end;
  private MyEnum myEnum; 
  ...
}
@Entity
public class MyEntity
{

@Embedded
@AttributeOverrides({
            @AttributeOverride(name="start", column=@Column("START")),
            @AttributeOverride(name="end", column=@Column("END")),
            @AttributeOverride(name="myEnum", column=@Column("ENUM_VALUE")) //This is what i would like to store as string, but now i think the ordinal is stored.
    })
private FooEnum myEnumField;
....
}