Which are your favorites? How about specific varieties? For example, I’ve had mission figs, which I kind of like, but not enough to make a snacking mainstay. I like dates better, but I’m not sure which varieties I’ve had (maybe medjool and noor, if that sounds right, but I don’t recall the difference in flavor/texture).
Any unusual dried fruits I might find at the grocery store?
Medjool dates seem to be marketed as “the big fancy kind”, and most of the time I’ve found them very very nice. I did get one container of them once that was far lower quality than usual, didn’t taste good and were pretty dry. I’m not sure exactly how they got that way - bad dates from the start? good once but got old? poorly processed? Anyway, that was just once, and the rest were great.
Yeah, suuuuper calorically dense. But if it’s for a lovely treat, Turkish figs are amazing. I like the no-added-sugar kind of dried mango, I don’t like the texture of the candied kind. Different grape varieties, if you can find them, make for nice kinds of raisin, like muscat (http://www.bellaviva.com/muscat-raisins). I also had some of those fancy French prunes once, d’Agen, but they didn’t seem much different from the supermarket kind, IMHO.
I got some dried pears from Trader Joe’s. They are fucking awesome. All of the flavor of a real, delicious pear with none of the possibility for going bad.
Unfortunately they’re super high in sugar so I might as well be eating Jelly Bellys. I just let them sit there and dare me to eat them.
If I was going for that world record, I’m pretty sure the that the best way to “win” it would be to just start chugging pure olive oil, which is even higher in calories and you don’t need to chew.
The dried red plums from Nuts.com are out of this world, though I don’t remember if the ones I mean are the pluots or the Angelino plums. Get some of each, just to be on the safe side. If you think dried plums = prunes, you are in for a revelation. Tartness/chewiness of apricots with luscious sweetness of plums. Mmmmmm.
I enjoy pretty much all the fruits described thus far in this thread. I’d add dried apples to the list. Dried fruit is delicious, just don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re making some calorie-wise dietary decision with it.
Dried tart cherries are my favourite, but I do like pineapple, apple, and apricot as well. Dried blueberries can be hit or miss which is too bad because I love blueberries. Dried strawberries aren’t as good as I would like.
Next time I am at Bulk Barn I may have to give the dried cantaloupe a try.
Costco has awesome bags of Dried Cherries for cheap. They are wonderful and dried cherries tend to be really expensive otherwise.
Dried banana, apricots, pineapple and of course raisins are all favorites of mine. Freeze dried strawberries are amazing too, but expensive as hell since it’s basically “astronaut food”.
Haven’t seen the Dried Pears at Trader Joe’s before, need to be on the lookout for that.
I went on a tour of a heritage orchard last summer, and was fascinated to see how they dried their fancy, delicious fruit. On a table. In the farmyard. In the sun. For a few days. Some was sprinkled by hand with a sulphur salt, to keep the colour bright. It was the least industrial thing you can imagine. Since then I’ve been itching to try drying my own.