THIS week we shine a spotlight on raisins.
Half of the world’s supply of raisins is produced on the west coast of the United States.
California discovered the commercial potential of raisins quite by accident in 1873, when a freak hot spell withered the grapes on the vine. One enterprising grocer in San Francisco advertised his stock of shrivelled grapes as Peruvian delicacies – and the rest is history.
However, the finest raisins come from Malaga in Spain.
Golden raisins are made by treating the raisins with a lye solution. Sometimes the raisins are treated with lye and then burning sulphur or with sulphur dioxide. It takes more than four tons of grapes to produce one ton of raisins.
The city of Fresno in California is the Raisin Capital of the World.
The word raisin comes from the Latin racemus and means “a cluster of grapes or berries”.
The California Dancing Raisin was introduced in 1984 by the California Raisin Industry marketing staff to increase awareness and demand for California raisins in the US and internationally.
