Ingredients · Fruit
Raisin
Vitis vinifera · Vitaceae (grape family)
What it’s like, and how to use it
How to use it
In fruit and dessert blends, where they sweeten. Rehydrate to plumpness in a hot pot. Good in mulled and spiced drinks. They will make a cup noticeably sweeter, so count them as sugar when balancing a blend.
With food
Cinnamon. Almond and walnut. Apple. Rum. Cream. Oats. Dark chocolate. Cured meat and hard cheese.
With spices
Cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Cardamom. Star anise. Vanilla.
With tea
Black tea, especially Assam and Ceylon. Rooibos. Pu-erh, for the dessert direction. Honeybush.
Its story
Where it comes from
Global production in 2023–24 was about 1.1 million tonnes, led by Turkey, China, Iran and the United States. The common North American type is Thompson Seedless; golden ones are sultanas, and small dark ones are sold as currants — confusingly, since those are grapes and have nothing to do with black or red currants. No lot origin is named in our notes.
What happened
A raisin is simply what a grape becomes if it is left alone in the sun, which is why raisins are older than almost any other preserved food. They are made by sun drying, shade drying or mechanical drying — the first is cheapest and the most vulnerable to contamination — and most commercial fruit is pre-treated with a chemical solution that speeds the water loss two- or threefold. The naming still trips people up: the small dark raisins sold as currants come from the Black Corinth grape and are named after Corinth, while blackcurrants and redcurrants are an entirely different plant in an entirely different family.
On the shelf with it
Every product it goes into.
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