Raisins

[Gifted Gourmet]

Here's what I think about the subject:

The Eternal Raisin Debate

and the follow-up thread:

more about raisins

Thank you for this link, JAZ! Never knew it existed ... you have provided us with the definitive word on raisins in this piece!

[bloviatrix]

ooh and i second the cadbusry fruit and nut bar application. as well as in chunkys. pretty much any sort of chocolate and raisin combo is aceptable.

and yogurt covered raisins are good too.

I'm with you on this one. But then, I still mourn the discontinuation of Ben & Jerry's Dastardly Mash which had raisins in chocolate ice cream.

[JennyUptown]

Yum, raisins. More for me!

[Adam Balic]

Personally not keen on crap quality industrial grade raisins. However, dried muscatels (on the stems) at christmas are very good and really nice when dosed in brandy and set alight. Eaten after the flames die out, they taste sweet, smoky and brandish.

[phaelon56]

I rarely eat them all by themselves... lonely little shriveled up things that they are... but I just love them on a green salad. Throw some sliced red onion, greens shredded carrot and crumbly blue cheese together with a light toss of balsamic vinegarette. There's something about the texture and the sewwtness that just perfectly complements the other ingredients. that same sald is pretty damn good with room temp extra sharp cheddar cheddar crumbled onto it instead of the blue cheese.

I know some ne who puts them in their galumpkies (sp? these are cabbage rols with a rice and meat filling) but I dont' care for them that way.

Almost forgot about oatmeal raisin cookies - mmmmmmm.

[kimmyb72]

phaelon56 i am so freaked out by you saying you put raisins in your salad that i can't possible eat the salad i brought for lunch now!!

[nessa]

Nothing peeves me more though, than to bite into something you thought had chocolate chips in them, just to realize they are just a plain old raisins.

Nothing peeves me more than buying a nice breakfast muffin and finding it chock full of choco-chips!

!

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I loathe chocolate chip muffins and pancakes etc. By god, if I want chocolate for breakfast, I'll just unwrap the foil and have a bar. But I can't stand biting into a cookie, thinking its got chocolate chips and ending up with raisins. I guess what I'm trying to say is, If I'm expecting one thing, I hate to get a nasty surprise, either way.

[Katherine]

phaelon56 i am so freaked out by you saying you put raisins in your salad that i can't possible eat the salad i brought for lunch now!!

Yes, unanticipated dried fruit in a salad was one component of my worst dining experience of all time.

[Toliver]

i forgot to say that my grandmother used to put them in meatballs. where she got that idea from i will never know.

Could be a Latin/Mediterranean thing. Besides Moroccan dishes, I know raisins are used in empañadas (Spanish "dumplings").

You haven't lived til you've had a Southern version of Bread Pudding with Whiskey Bourbon soaked raisins, so plump with booze you could get a hangover after eating the dessert!

edited because I type too fast for my brian...oops, brain!

Edited March 17, 2004 by Toliver (log)

[Lady T]

I very much like raisins, actually -- usually plumped in warm brandy first -- for baking.

I can take or leave 'em for eating out of hand, but boozy fruit in pastries is a fave of mine in the cold months.

[Pickles]

today is the worst, st patrick's day. that fluffy warm soda bread. looks so good until you realize something's amiss. that perfect crust browned to perfection has little bumps all over it. you move in for a closer look and (gasp!) it's the raisins, they have invaded that luscious irish soda bread!

According to my Dublin-born pal, a traditional (and basic) Irish recipe wouldn't have raisins in it. And usually any bits of dried fruit I've gotten in American-Irish Soda bread have been dried currents (or raisins). It's the caraway seeds sometimes in it that I can live without. I don't mind raisins (or any dried fruits) in savory dishes. And my favorite bread is raisin pumpernickle..which is very hard to find for some stupid reason.

[kimmyb72]

According to my Dublin-born pal, a traditional (and basic) Irish recipe wouldn't have raisins in it. And usually any bits of dried fruit I've gotten in American-Irish Soda bread have been dried currents (or raisins).

that's another thing i can't deal with, that citron stuff. they put it in hot cross buns. gross!!

[lorea]

But I can't stand biting into a cookie, thinking its got chocolate  chips and ending up with raisins. 

Oh gosh....I always felt the exact opposite. I hate biting into an oatmeal cookie and getting chocolate chips! As a raisin-lover, I eat oatmeal cookies for the raisins, banana bread for the raisins, raisin bran for the raisins....the other stuff is just filler.

Oh, and I used to love raisins so much, I would eat them soaked in milk....kinda like raisin bran and milk, but without the bran!

Edited March 17, 2004 by lorea (log)

[tryska]

i've actually had raisins in a salad before. with tuna, and balsamic. yum. but that's the only savory application allowed, mind.

And bloviatrix - i think raisins in chocolate ice cream may have just crossed my personal preserved fruit line. granted i've never had it, but it's sorta scaring me. *lol*

btw - phaelon - i think it might be spelled "golumkes"

Edited March 17, 2004 by tryska (log)

[balmagowry]

btw - phaelon - i think it might be spelled "golumkes"

Depends where you're from. In Russian cooking it's "golubtsi," meaning "doves" - the idea being that the cabbage rolls are shaped like plump little birds. Never heard/seen it pronounced/spelled anything like the way you guys have it (wouldn't "gollumkes" be something from the Lord of the Rings cookbook? ), but that doesn't mean anything, since the names vary as widely as the technical nationalities of the regions from year to year - might be a Polish or Latvian version. Where Ukrainians, for instance, have "pierogies," the closest Russian equivalent is "piroshki." But the village that was part of Russia when my great-grandparents lived there has since been part of Poland and then part of Lithuania, so who knows what they would call these things if they lived there now! At any rate, their descendant still makes "piroshki," "kotlietki," and "golubtsi," and the latter is obviously the same dish you're describing. And no, to bring it back on topic, raisins have NO place in it, no matter what you call it!

(On reflection I do think "golubtsi" is probably the original name, if not necessarily the original form - because of the way it translates. But I don't know enough about other slavic languages to be at all sure. I do remember being called "golubchik" - "little dove" - when I was little, though.)

[Katherine]

They had a Polish festival in the town where I grew up. They called them galumpkis there.

[JennotJenn]

I hate them except in this chicken salad the Lebanese deli in our town makes. The raisins are huuuuuge plump golden things almost the size of my thumb. Not the nastiness I usually expect with raisins. And growing up in a town that processes flue-cured tobacco, you soon realize that Sun Maid raisins and a fresh box of (unsmoked) cigarettes smell virtually identical. Ugh.

[tryska]

where was your polish festival katherine?

just did a websearch - so far i've gotten galumke, galumpki (pronounced ga-woom-ki), golumpke, and golumpki (which seems to the web preference).

no golumke tho. i'm blaming my polish ex-roommate who taught me about all things polish (including how to polka)

Edited March 17, 2004 by tryska (log)

[phaelon56]

phaelon56 i am so freaked out by you saying you put raisins in your salad that i can't possible eat the salad i brought for lunch now!!

Yes, unanticipated dried fruit in a salad was one component of my worst dining experience of all time.

Kimmy - do I get credit for helping you eat less or is that a bad thing?

I only use them in one particular style of salad, as described. I do find golden raisins to be good in a few other styles of salads - they're more versatile.

Plumping them up is a huge factor - the raisins take on an entirely different character and texture when this is done - much softer and sweet and they sort of pop in your mouth like a concentrated grap (not surprising - they are indeed grapes!). I plump them by soaking in cranberry juice or Ame (a fruit based herbal infused beverage that I often drink with meals instead of wine). I've had them plumped with white wine and it's even better.

In the truly authentic Polish restaurant in my area (the owner/chef is from Poland and moved here about 10-15 years ago) raisins are not included in the cabbage rolls but I do have Polish-American friends who always include them in when preparing such a dish at home.

[kimmyb72]

phaelon56 i went with soup today, a safe shoice! funny thing is i like those dried cranberries in my salad but the raisins are a negative.

[phaelon56]

phaelon56 i went with soup today, a safe shoice! funny thing is i like those dried cranberries in my salad but the raisins are a negative.

I've tried the dried cranberries - even after plumping them up they still don't do it for me. I have a container of them in the cupboard just waitign to be used for something else. Perhaps in a stuffing the next time I cool a turkey?

[balmagowry]

They had a Polish festival in the town where I grew up. They called them galumpkis there.

See? Toldja it didn't mean anything.

Now I'm more curious than ever, though, about the Polish etymology. Any Polish speakers around? No? Damn.

[tryska]

I did find somewhere in my surfing a recipe for "Golumpkis (Polish Pigeons)"

if that helps any. actually..hang on..lemme see if i can google that link back up:

no dice. i can't backtrack.

[balmagowry]

I did find somewhere in my surfing a recipe for "Golumpkis (Polish Pigeons)"

if that helps any.  actually..hang on..lemme see if i can google that link back up:

no dice.  i can't backtrack.

Aha! Now I've been googling toogling, and I think we're getting somewhere. Search term: "Polish stuffed cabbage." I did see "galumbki" in one hit - which also gave the Slovak as "halupki." But most of the hits that came up gave the Polish name as "galubki," which makes very good sense, the Polish for "dove" being "golab." I think "galumbki" and its variants are probably sort of a slang diminutive - for that matter the same applies in Russian, where "dove" is "golub" and "stuffed cabbage" becomes "golubtsi." When you pronounce these things the 'o's and 'a's get kind of mixed around. Some of them may even be Polish-American corruptions - who knows. Anyway, I'm satisfied, so I guess I'd better skeedaddle before the Topic Police catch up with me.

(But I do love dried cranberries - by themselves, to eat out of hand.)

[sequim]

I'm just agog at all the out-of-the-closet raisin haters here.

I love the chew, I love the squish. Raisins are it for me.