[Sca-cooks] New raisins in de Nola

[margali]

My husband spent a fair amount of time around rasins...but in general 
the raisins that hit your house are about one year old, and the cheap 
off brand raisins can be two or even three years old...if you open the 
box of raisins and see they are very shriveled and hard, and the sugers 
therein are starting to crystalize on the outside fo the little thing 
then they are a touch over 3 years old and starting to convert to 
sugar...in some areas, Sunmaid/SunGiant starts to put the raisins out 
after about 3 months, those are the nice moist ones. Of course if you go 
and buy from the grower's co-op, you get then right after productions. 
You will also find raisins there you won't find anywhere else, like 
orange muscat grapes, black muscats...=)In general, most all raisins now 
are made of thompson's seedless as they are the predominant grape grown 
in the central valley that isn't intended for winery use.
Muscats never tend to make it to market because the co-op will usually 
only run 1 batch of each type through the deseeder [1 batch being 2000 
pounds.] Now if a person is willing to buy 1 day's production from the 
de-seeder, they will happily run you a special batch of 2000 lbs of a 
raisin of your choice.

Other spiffy product available in the farmer's market is grape honey=) 
thick, purplish, musky in taste and there is the slightest skin of 
bitter floating on top...some sort of natural oil found in teh nectar. 
very tannic=) with sherry yeast makes the most incredible mead you would 
want to try=)

But back to the grapes at hand...fresh, moist grapes would be easier to 
handle in this recipe, and in general one would think in period that 
raisins wouldnt hang around long enough to get to be more than 7 or 8 
months old, being used over the winer they are set by for.
margali

Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:

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

>>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 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
>