TDG: JAZ Hates Raisins

[SWoodyWhite]

It's little things like raisins that can destroy relationships. I loath and abhor the nasty things. My partner thinks they are wonderful. I have known him to ruin a pleasurable dinner out by ordering a bread or rice pudding and eating it in front of me!

Raisins are evil. People who include raisins in their cooking without warning the rest of us are terrorists. If the jails weren't overcrowded already, I would insist on mandatory incarceration for those who perpetrate such crimes, at the rate of one year per disgusting fruit used in the recipe.

There is only one recourse if we are to end this insanity for once and for all. WE MUST NUKE FRESNO! That should do it.

Unfortunately, the raisin lovers would find something else to use in the place of raisins. Someone out there is probably already devising a recipe for chocolate chip cookies with cauliflower bits. Yuck.

[pixelchef]

I'm going to officially throw my support behind the raisin haters. I can't stand the little turds either.

[Xanthippe]

Raisins are evil.  People who include raisins in their cooking without warning the rest of us are terrorists.  If the jails weren't overcrowded already, I would insist on mandatory incarceration for those who perpetrate such crimes, at the rate of one year per disgusting fruit used in the recipe.

What say we release all the poor, benighted pot smokers -- then there'd be room for the Raisin Miscreants!!!

[TrishCT]

Although I like raisins in some things.... nothing disappoints more than biting into a cookie that you think has chocolate chips in it and egads, its not chocolate, its RAISINS!

[Ye-Ye Girl]

I used to say definitively I couldn't stand cooked raisins. I can't even make broad generalizations like that anymore, though, since I've found a couple of dishes I enjoy that have the plump little guys in them.

However, I still do not like the taste or texture of raisins in cinnamon rolls, cookies, bread pudding or sour cream raisin pie, and will not eat any of them. My mom makes that pie a lot at the holidays. The raisins were good for flicking at my cousins across from me at the kids' table, though.

I do like raisins and sultanas in couscous (sorry JAZ!), plumped up in oatmeal, and in a dish containing greens, garlic and pine nuts that I've heard described by different sources as Italian, Catalan, or southern. No matter to me. It's amazing regardless.

I don't like the little sugar-dusted excuses for raisins you see in most raisin brans. Eyew. And I generally don't eat raisins as stand alone treats. They're just not that appealing on their own, at least not to me.

Love them (uncooked) in broccoli salad and waldorf salad. And no movie would be complete without Raisinettes eaten simultaneously with buttered popcorn.

[heidijo]

I agree whole heartedly. My guilty secret is that I like currants. Does this make me a bad person ???

Me too. I harbor a til-now-secret belief that currants in Middle Eastern food are actually authentic, and it's only the evilness of the raisin lovers that leads them to horribly subvert the cuisine.

[Jason Perlow]

I think raisins are essential in rugelach.

I think shoe-fly pie is totally the spawn of satan, though.

[Ye-Ye Girl]

Shoo-fly pie doesn't have raisins in it.

Or was that just a random "I hate shoo-fly pie" comment, regardless of raisinage?

[Jason Perlow]

Maybe I have the wrong Pie. Isn't there a pie with tons of raisins in it? Maybe mincemeat?

[Ye-Ye Girl]

Yep, mincemeat would probably be your culprit. Most - but not all - versions of mincemeat I've seen contain lots of raisins. Could be the aforementioned sour cream raisin pie. It's not as commonly found as mincemeat, though.

[IrishCream]

For the most part I don't like raisins, but I think they go good in  fried rice, with pineapple  and chinese sausage.

Please tell me this is a joke! Raisins, and most other fruit except, perhaps, citrus, do not belong in savory food! And in desserts? Why would I want to bite down on a little hard shriveled-up puck in my cookie?

[JasonCampbell]

Raisins are most definitely not a good thing. I soften when confronted by a sultana, and generally enjoy most other dried fruits, I only mention this as I know you were dying to ask.

[SWoodyWhite]

For the most part I don't like raisins, but I think they go good in  fried rice, with pineapple  and chinese sausage.

Please tell me this is a joke! Raisins, and most other fruit except, perhaps, citrus, do not belong in savory food! And in desserts? Why would I want to bite down on a little hard shriveled-up puck in my cookie?

As I noted in another thread, I've found raisin paste or puree is included in the ingredients of a number of steak sauces, including A-1. I've a hunch this may be because they lend a natural counterbalance and sweetness to the spices and peppers used.

In turn, this leads to an interesting question: could raisins, when pureed or whatever, make a good ingredient in chili, again as a counterbalance to the peppers? I can fully understand not wanting to use them whole, but if unsweetened chocolate can add to the balance of flavors, could raisins have a parallel effect?

[IslandMom]

What can they possibly add, besides a virtually indiscernible touch of flavor and little pockets of squishy stickiness?

I absolutely love them:

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

rum Raisin ice cream (I'm soaking soem in rum as we speak to make a batch)

in pilaf's

in stuffings and dressings

in Picadillo

Pannetone

the list goes on and on....

They add a great sweetness and that is like nothing else and it is VERY discernible. As for their texture, well I love that too (same goes for dates, dried apricots, prunes,...). Do you hate those as well?

Other than the raisin-hating banter, I enjoyed the article . No seriously it was fun to read. Good work.

FM

Mmmmm, nothing better than rum raisin ice cream! I love raisins, and the only truly vile recipe I've ever tried involving raisins wasn't really a recipe, I guess. A few years ago, while living on the third floor of a 3 story walk-up in Seattle's U district, I came across an article in the Seattle PI that said a good cure for joint pain is soaking raisins in sloe gin, and consuming 10 soaked raisins a day. So..... I find a liquor store, purchase the smallest bottle of sloe gin I can find, take it home, and soak my raisins. After a couple of days, I thought they'd be soaked enough, so I eat one. Phhhtttttppptttphttt ewwww, I couldn't spit it out fast enough. It was the vilest thing I'd ever tasted in my life. What a shock!!! And to think I went to all that trouble to find a liquor store. (In Hawaii, most drug stores and supermarkets carry hard liquor, as well as beer and wine - so it would have been a lot easier to try out that evil potion).

[rozrapp]

Janet, Amen! So glad to see someone have to guts to tell it like it is. Why do some people insist on destroying perfectly delicious desserts like bread pudding and apple pie with those yucky raisin intruders? No raisins for me in any way, shape, form or dish!

I think raisins are essential in rugelach.

No raisins in rugelach -- absolutely not! I make the most delicious rugelach and never use raisins.

[Xanthippe]

No raisins in rugelach -- absolutely not!  I make the most delicious rugelach and never use raisins.

Care to post your rugelach recipe in the archive?? I adore rugelach -- without raisins, of course!

[rozrapp]

No raisins in rugelach -- absolutely not!  I make the most delicious rugelach and never use raisins.

Care to post your rugelach recipe in the archive?? I adore rugelach -- without raisins, of course!

The recipe I use is from Marcy Goldman's excellent book, A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking. I don't think the eGullet rules permit me to post it.

[Fresser]

Did you all like the illustration? Would you like to see more of them in future articles?

I liked the Evil Raisin Man picture.

Makes me wonder how you'd illustrate other types of foods. How about a slab of bleu cheese with a moustache and wrinkled-up nose?

[steph]

Dear Janet,

I recently stumbled across your article on raisins and was so excited to read your views. I am a fellow raisin hater who recently was discussing my hatred of this mutant fruit with co-workers, all of who found me to be a bit crazy and neurotic that I could feel so strongly on the topic, when I discovered your article. The thing I hate most is the packaging of raisins...thousands of little, squishy, masses all together in a tiny box that upon opening reveals the never ending abondance of the the most innoying and grossly disgusting food ever!!

Thank you for sharing my views on this topic and being brave enough to share them with the world!!

Steph

[tejon]

"You don't like raisins?"

"Not really."

"Why?"

"They used to be fat and juicy. And now they're twisted. They had their life stolen. Well, they used to taste sweet but really they're just humiliated grapes."

Exactly.

[snowangel]

Mmmmm, nothing better than rum raisin ice cream.

What about bacon?

Raisins are nasty, nasty, nasty. I will eat just about anything except raisins, peanut butter and bananas that are not borderline un-ripe.

My mother hated raisins and peanut butter and never served them; perhaps this is the root of my aversion?

[JAZ]

Raisins are nasty, nasty, nasty.  I will eat just about anything except raisins, peanut butter and bananas that are not borderline un-ripe.

My mother hated raisins and peanut butter and never served them; perhaps this is the root of my aversion?

Totally with you there on the banana front. I like them when they're almost crunchy. If there's no green tinge to the peel, forget it.

And you know, my mother detests coconut and indoctrinated us with her views. I've come to like coconut milk in Asian food, but still can't abide coconut in anything sweet. So there's definitely something to that.

[KNorthrup]

Another vote for semi-green bananas.

I'm on the other side with the mother thing though. There are many foods I never ate growing up because my mother didn't like them. And was really not otherwise exposed to them. With the exception of celery, I like if not love each of them (especially eggplant and cucumbers) and have been actively making up for lost time.

Edit: Turns out she hates raisins too and loved the bit about humiliated grapes but she did let us eat those because they were so heavily marketed as a nutritous snack that she would have gotten grief from the other mothers if she hadn't.

Edited July 30, 2003 by KNorthrup (log)

[Lindacakes]

I kind of hate raisins, especially in cookies. I am in the camp that dies a little inside when I pick up what I thought was a chocolate chip cookie and encounter a raisin.

My taste buds must be dying, though, because as I get older, I hate them less.

I do like white raisins in rice pudding in Indian restaurants, all plumped up with milk. White raisins are very tricky. Good ones can be had at nuts.com, jumbo golden raisins. Super good.

They are really sublime when ground into, for instance, a black cake such as my 'tar. Mixed with port and other dried and candied fruits they reach new heights. Same is true of prunes, also part of black cake.

[furzzy]

I buy the big clam shells of Spring Mix for salads, then saute then with pine nuts & raisins that have been soaked in sherry.