MAIN INGREDIENT
Before there were tin cans, freezers, or the means by which we can process a food into a lesser version of itself, there were dried fruits.
The first dried fruit that comes to most minds is the raisin, which accounts for half of the world’s dried fruit production, followed by the humble date, prune and fig, with apricots, peaches, apples and pears bringing up the rear. Many of us have flung any or all of those dried fruits into a chicken curry, with the more adventurous among us using them to make chutney.
What could be more ubiquitous than the dried grape, the dried fruit that invented itself? Whoever was the first human to gaze upon the shrivelled grapes on a vine could claim to have discovered – but not invented – the raisin, the original accidental food, created by neglect.
Chew a raisin and you’re tasting a grape whose flavour has intensified and sweetened. Is it a better grape for having had the sun and time dry it out yet make it more delicious? It loses that juicy burst of joy on biting into a fresh grape, but arguably it gains so much more. But the fresh grape exists only for that instant hit, unless it’s to be made into wine; the dried grape, the raisin, can last indefinitely. They need no preservatives, and there’s no need for a label to advise you to eat them by a certain date. Just store them until you need them.
There’s much more potential for dried fruit than the stewed fruit served for breakfast, with better versions simmered with cinnamon and citrus peel and a bit of brown sugar. Nor do they need to be relegated to the Christmas cake and plum pudding and then forgotten about for another year, but for a brief outing at Easter in hot cross buns.
Like coriander and marzipan, dried fruits can be divisive. I’m always amazed to hear someone say they hate Christmas fruit mince, but the intensified flavour and texture of dried fruit is not to everyone’s taste. If that’s you, you could revisit such ingredients and use them sparingly so that they are not the dominant ingredient of a dish.
I’ve made fruity sauces for pork and game involving dried fruit along with a liqueur or other strong liquor, and herbs for balance, that have been a hit with friends who would pull a sour face if you offered them a fruit mince pie. Such sauces can be a match for chicken too, or used in a stuffing.
So much for raisins. There are many other dried fruits on the market today, and I’m not referring only to the obvious ones such as dates, apricots, apples and bananas.
Every time I drive through Calitzdorp, the “Port capital” of the Klein Karoo, my eye is distracted from the road by the corrugated iron roof emblazoned with “Calitzdorp Fruit” on the approach to the Huisrivier Pass. I usually drive by, but I recently decided to stop and have a look. I’d expected fresh fruit, but Elnatan Calitzdorp Fruit is all about the dried wares.
I piled cellophane packets of all sorts into a shopping basket. Dried red figs, datal raisins (there are many varieties), strawberries, papaya, cranberries, guavas, peaches, pineapple, dates, mangoes and sun-dried tomatoes (they’re fruit too).
They also have those fruit rolls and “stix”, and that is where you lose me. I have no taste for them and dislike their texture, so I suppose I do see where those who hate dried fruit are coming from.
We can get a bit technical on the subject, I suppose. Enter Wikipedia: “Dried fruit is fruit from which the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialised dryers or dehydrators.” The
food’s origins have been traced to the fourth millennium BC in
Mesopotamia.
We think of dried fruits as being distinctly South African, having been a part of Cape food culture in particular for hundreds of years. But North African cuisines are rife with them too, not least Morocco where dried figs and dates grace many a tagine.
Dried fruits really are a superfood. They have an endless shelf life, retain nearly all of the nutrients of the fresh fruit, gain rather than lose in flavour, and can be used in anything from a compote or a sweet sauce for waffles, pancakes and ice cream to jams, relishes and chutneys, cakes, breads and biscotti. Famously, raisins are a part of Austria’s gift to the world of the apfelstrudel, as well as other apple tarts and pies.
And let’s not forget how great they are in a curry. The packet of dried red figs I bought in Calitzdorp was swiftly earmarked for a chicken curry.