# So what is a saltana, anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2000, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333 "2000-12-13T08:26:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JeremyCB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb9ed0/32.png) [@JeremyCB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeremyCB)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/1 "2000-12-13T08:26:27Z")
Isn’t it some kind of raisin? It’s a term that I’ve seen in a few recipes, but no one has ever been able to tell me. ---
**Author:** ![Gaspode](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/aeb1de/32.png) [@Gaspode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaspode)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/2 "2000-12-13T08:44:06Z")
Sultana is a kind of sweet grape, [http://www.ozwine.com.au/ozwine/grape\_38.htm](http://www.ozwine.com.au/ozwine/grape_38.htm) , but here in Australia and I assume elsewhere in the world it is commonly used to refer to the raisins made fom those grapes. ---
**Author:** ![CWN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@CWN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWN)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/3 "2000-12-13T15:38:23Z")
\ And here I thought this post was going to be on the worst steamship disaster in American history. The Sultana was a steamship transporting union soldiers home from POW camps after the civil war.Grossly overloaded when a boiler blew,killing over 1700 men. \ ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/4 "2000-12-13T15:47:28Z")
The Sultana is also a Chesapeake Bay ship from the 1600s being rebuilt in Chestertown, MD as an educational project. I’ve seen it, it’s cool, my wife bought the hat! ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/5 "2000-12-13T15:53:18Z")
A sultana is what we call a “golden raisin” in the US. I know about the incident CWN refers to, also. It was at the end of the war, and it was actually carrying returning soldiers from both sides, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/6 "2000-12-13T16:00:25Z")
Sorry, I actually said that backwards, didn’t I. “Golden raisin” is the US term for the UK “sultana” is what I meant to convey. ---
**Author:** ![suziek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@suziek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suziek)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/7 "2000-12-14T04:42:09Z")
I was in Australia for the past nine weeks at a health farm and we ate lots of sultanas. It seems that it is just a generic term for “raisin”. The kind we ate were the small, black ones. ---
**Author:** ![schief2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@schief2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schief2)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/8 "2000-12-14T05:13:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JeremyCB \* > \*\*Isn’t it some kind of raisin? It’s a term that I’ve seen in a few recipes, but no one has ever been able to tell me. \*\* Indeed, sultana is just a fancy-pants term for “black raisin”. It seems to pop up most often in conjunction with recipes for Indian/Pakistani food; my half-guess is that’s what they’re called on the subcontinent, and the term spread backward through the rest of the old British empire. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/9 "2000-12-14T05:57:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by schief2 \* > \*\* sultana is just a fancy-pants term for “black raisin”. > \*\* Well fancy-pants term or not, I think you are mistaken. Obviously the terminology varies but I would infer from the posts above that the terms used in Australia of raisin, sultana and currant would have their equivalents as the American(?) terms raisin, golden raisin and black raisin. The varieties of grape used determine which dried fruit you get. Currants aren’t just over desiccated raisins 🙂 From [Grape Drying in Australia](http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/wine/gda.html) In Australia, the main varieties of grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) grown for drying are, in order of importance, Sultana (Sultanina, Thompson Seedless, Kish-mish), Currant (Zante Currant, Carina), Muscat Gordo Blanco (Muscat of Alexandria), and Waltham Cross (Rosaki, Dattier, Regina, Malaga). The dried fruit of the last two is collectively called raisins in Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Quisp\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/8491ac/32.png) [@Quisp\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quisp_Eater)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/10 "2000-12-14T08:03:50Z")
This explains why I could only find boxes of Kellogg’s _Sultana_ Bran when I lived in England. I realize I’m going off the topic, but why do they have Fairy dish detergent instead of Ivory in England??? ---
**Author:** ![longjohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@longjohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/longjohn)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-is-a-saltana-anyway/45333/11 "2000-12-14T14:06:38Z")
It’s the wife of a sultan, surely?