Raisin' the Profile of Dried Fruit

Golden Raisins are being sold as `hip' and happening and - I'd like to think - with tongue firmly planted in cheek, as the fashionable blonde `supermodel of the dried fruit family.'

Marketing and advertising types have been working hard to find new ways to make dried grapes or ‘dried vine fruit’ – the (incredibly) somehow less appealing quasi-official term for the category - sexy since the inspired breakthrough that was the Californian Raisins.

Let’s leave aside at this juncture the accusations of racism levelled at the campaign that began in 1986 with a bunch of shrivelled, purple claymation, Motown-inspired, raisins singing ‘Heard it Through the Grapevine’ and, with Christmas looming, focus instead on how cute they look with their saccharine, faux-soulful take on ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. (Having thought about it there’s probably a piece to be written on the connection between the anthropomorphising of food in advertising and latent human cannibalism but – you’ll no doubt be relieved to hear – this isn’t it.)    

Meanwhile if recent reports are to be believed – and I’ll personally need much more convincing - dried vine fruit merchants have a new a new golden child the, erm, ‘Golden raisin.’ It’s being sold as ‘hip’ and happening and – I’d like to think – with tongue firmly planted in cheek, as the fashionable blonde ‘supermodel of the dried fruit family.’ 

For all but the most dedicated dried-vine-fruit-fact-fans please allow me to clarify the current – sorry – terms: raisin, sultana and currant are all terms used to describe dried grapes. Raisin is used both as a blanket term to describe all dried grapes and – just to confuse - to differentiate from sultanas which, larger and paler than ordinary raisins, are made from a particular variety of large white seedless grapes; and currants; which are made from a type of small sweet black grape.   

To befuddle you further ‘Golden raisins’ are, in fact, made from a variety of grape called the ‘Thompson Seedless’, named after the 19th century, Yorkshire-born viticulturist William Thompson, who emigrated to California and cultivated it, and is related to the original sultana grape of Persian origin. (The sultana is said to have its origins in the Ottoman Empire where folklore supposedly has a Sultan leaving his grapes out in sun after fleeing a tiger attack.)     

Golden raisins get their distinctive hue from being treated with sulphur dioxide, which prevents them from darkening, and are flame-dried. The current – apologies again – vogue for them in restaurant kitchens is based as much upon their appearance as it is on their distinct sweetness. British baking of the sort that brings us Spotted Dick, Eccles Cakes, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake traditionally depends on currants and dark raisins for its hits of dried sweet grape, but away from baking, sprinkled on a plate or in a sauce, as chefs are wont to do, they look too much like rabbit droppings.

What the Golden Raisin really needs now is a sharp advertising campaign to keep their bandwagon rolling, to keep on raisin’ – that’s it, I promise – their profile. Let’s see… chemically treated, golden, shrivelled, loveable and in possession of a giant back catalogue of toe-tapping hits? I wonder if the Rolling Stones are available…