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Interesting Way to Dry Fruit


Shel_B

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While on a walk through Berkeley yesterday, I saw a tray of sliced apples drying on the package shelf behind the rear seat of a car parked in the sun.  Seems like it might be a good way to dry fruit if the weather's right.  Anyone ever try this?  Any thoughts about a downside to this technique?

 ... Shel


 

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I sure as heck ain't in Berkeley (never will be :smile:) and I've dried stuff that way...it's actually a common technique.

No real downside if the vehicle is vented and the produce kept out of direct sun.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Only in Berkeley, folks, only in Berkeley.

 

I sure as heck ain't in Berkeley (never will be :smile:) and I've dried stuff that way...it's actually a common technique.

No real downside if the vehicle is vented and the produce kept out of direct sun.

 

Obviously, this technique is used elsewhere, wino ...

 ... Shel


 

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I sure as heck ain't in Berkeley (never will be :smile:) and I've dried stuff that way...it's actually a common technique.

No real downside if the vehicle is vented and the produce kept out of direct sun.

 

Common?  Kinda new to me.

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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I probably should have said common among those who don't want to purchase or build a dehydrator and/or spend money on energy.  :smile:

It's certainly not ideal, but when my solar dehydrators are full and i need some extra space...into the Jeep Liberty the stuff goes.

I've been drying stuff that way since about 1980.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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No, but many years ago when I was heavy into beekeeping I used the inside of a car as a solar beeswax melter.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Not unless you're bothered by the smell of drying fruits and vegetables.

Pests are a potential problem but the elevated heat in the vehicle usually keeps them at bay.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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I've read about this before, but never tried it. But it's been around for awhile, here's a 2009 article on the dehydration idea:

 

http://thetanglednest.com/2009/08/drying-food-in-car/

 

Also, there is a whole oeuvre on cooking with cars:

 

http://jalopnik.com/5913336/the-ten-best-recipes-for-cooking-with-your-car/

 

Some of it seems kinda silly to me, but I guess it works! 

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"Kinda silly" being the operative words.  I think if you can afford to drive a car around Berkeley, you can afford the Ronco dehydrator.

 

51Y2l%2BSgvsL.jpg

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ronco-FD1005WHGEN-5-Tray-Electric-Dehydrator/dp/B000G20TCQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=http://www.amazon.com/Ronco-FD1005WHGEN-5-Tray-Electric-Dehydrator/dp/B000G20TCQ&linkCode=as2&tag=egulletcom-20">It's $35 on Amazon.

 

And if rotuts is around, you can be sure he's searching for the BB&B coupon  :laugh:  :laugh:  :laugh:  !

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Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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Maybe their Ronco was full.  :biggrin:

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Do you roast stuff in your engine compartment as well?

 

http://youtu.be/c8N7fbevmRg

Many years ago when we went camping in the High Sierras, I would wrap a roast and whole vegetables (potatoes and carrots, etc) in three layers of foil, put it on a wire grid over the manifold (big Chrysler engine) and by the time we got to Convict Lake it was done and the inside of the wagon smelled so good everyone was drooling.

Because it was so cool in the mountains, I would put yeast dough in a plastic bucket in the wagon so it would work like a proof box when it was sunny (most of the time) and I made wild strawberry jam in a baking pan on the dashboard (metal dash before the days of padding).  Worked like a charm.

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"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Frankly it's hard to imagine successful car-drying in Berkeley. This might work better in a drier climate. Yes, we are in the middle of a drought, but the air is not really dry the way it is in the southwest. I moved into a house in New Mexico one autumn (a million years ago) and discovered that someone had put several bushels of peach halves on the roof, spread out to dry. I am assuming they were from that summer, because, in fact, they were delicious, in a rustic rooftop kind of way. Leathery, not very moist, but really flavorful. Given the weird stuff I ate in my twenties I'm surprised I'm still alive.


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Frankly it's hard to imagine successful car-drying in Berkeley. This might work better in a drier climate. Yes, we are in the middle of a drought, but the air is not really dry the way it is in the southwest. I moved into a house in New Mexico one autumn (a million years ago) and discovered that someone had put several bushels of peach halves on the roof, spread out to dry. I am assuming they were from that summer, because, in fact, they were delicious, in a rustic rooftop kind of way. Leathery, not very moist, but really flavorful. Given the weird stuff I ate in my twenties I'm surprised I'm still alive.

 

 

I talked to the car owner yesterday evening and she gave me some apple slices that she dried.  They were pretty good and quite flavorful.  The apples came from a tree in her back yard.  I didn't ask her what type they were, but they looked like Gravenstein to me.

 

When I came to California in 1967, I discovered sun dried tomatoes on a ranch up in Napa.  These tomatoes were dried in small flats on the roof of the barn and ranch house.  Never having had (or heard of) sun dried tomatoes before, these were quite a treat, on several levels.

 

We humans are pretty resiliant.  Toots' early years were spent on her grandfather's plantation in the jungle of Paraguay, and to hear about what she ate and how she lived made me realize how strong we can be.

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 ... Shel


 

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Frankly it's hard to imagine successful car-drying in Berkeley. This might work better in a drier climate. Yes, we are in the middle of a drought, but the air is not really dry the way it is in the southwest. I moved into a house in New Mexico one autumn (a million years ago) and discovered that someone had put several bushels of peach halves on the roof, spread out to dry. I am assuming they were from that summer, because, in fact, they were delicious, in a rustic rooftop kind of way. Leathery, not very moist, but really flavorful. Given the weird stuff I ate in my twenties I'm surprised I'm still alive.

 

 

 

I'm in lovely NY state, our summer humidity average spikes above Berkeley's...no problem drying here.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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On my grandpa's farm in western Kentucky where I was born and raised, there were several outbuildings with galvanized metal roofs on which fruits were dried. I know from personal experience how hot the metal could get.  The fruits were on large screen frames (like window screens) that were covered with curtain "netting" and if a storm threatened the activity to get the fruit undercover was frantic. 

To prepare for the drying activity my uncles or some of the farm workers would set up sawhorses with planks so the women could walk along them to distribute the fruit and remove the frames when the stuff was dried. 

 

As it was always quite humid the drying did take longer than it does here in the southwest.  The one problem we had was that wasps and bees also like to try to get at the fruit - not to mention naughty children who were absolutely forbidden to climb onto the planks...

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"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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