[Sca-cooks] New raisins in de Nola

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 11 Oct 2003, at 18:27, david friedman wrote:

> One of the things done in today's cooking workhop was the lemon dish 
> from de Nola. The instructions include:
> 
> "take new raisins, and clean them well of the seeds, and grind them 
> by themselves and strain them through a woolen cloth;"
> 
> Straining raisins, even after grinding, sounds pretty difficult; the 
> lady who did the dish rehydrated the raisins by boiling them for a 
> little. I wondered if perhaps "new raisins" might mean "the kind of 
> grapes you use for raisins, before they are dried." Does anyone know?

I don't know for sure, but...

The original phrase is "passas nuevas".

"Passas" is definitely the word for "raisins", though the double 's' is an 
archaic spelling.  It's short for "uvas pasas" meaning dried grapes.  
According to the 1739 RAE dictionary, the verb "passar" can refer to the 
drying of other fruits; ex. "higos pasos" (dried figs), but when used alone, 
"passas" means dried grapes.

If undried grapes were meant, I'd expect the recipe to say "uvas" (grapes).  I 
wonder if it could mean grapes that are only partly dried?  You'd have the 
more concentrated flavor and sweetness, but not the fully-dried texture.  This 
is speculation on my part.

I took a look in Lobera de Avila's 1530 health manual.  In his chapter on 
raisins, he notes the varying properties of raisins made from black grapes, 
white grapes, sweet grapes, and tart grapes.  This makes me think that "the 
kind of grapes you use for raisins" is not limited to one variety.

It might be an idea to try partly-drying some grapes in a dehydrator or a very 
low oven.




Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net