3mo ago

why would you put it in stuffing

95 comments

I always think of white people as the ones complaining about raisins in food. So many delicious savory dishes with raisins from the Middle East or India provoke strong reactions from western pallets used to food that only does 1 thing, rather than combining multiple flavours.
- Yeah that's strange, I always associated raisins in food as something ranging from Morocco to Bangladesh. Not the whitest countries ever.
  Imho in general European food isn't very keen on sweet and salty mixes. Except for the USA who does it all wrong smh.
  
  We have a few potato and apple combinations in the Rhineland.
  Also goose with quince or pear are present in french cuisine.
  I think traditional European cooking has many similarities with south med/ near east cooking. Don't lob us in with modern American randomness.
- I was thinking "have these guys never had an empanada?"
  
  Raisins inside empanadas should be a sin- I don’t like having a sweet surprise in what should be a mouthwatering savoury meal
  
  Raisins in empanadas aren’t universal. Here in colombia they don’t usually include them.
  
  I learned how to make empanadas so that I could make them without the raisins my mom would add.
- Yeah, those are the cuisines I associate with raisins
  I think white people just try to make their food as hot as possible and don’t pay any mind to other flavours
  
  White person (UK) here. Honestly, you're overestimating a lot of us.
  My own mother will just add curry powder, veg, and chicken chunks to a pot of chicken stock and call that curry. It is an abomination. I haven't eaten it in years and it haunts my nightmares still.
- I love raisins in my curries because they actually add depth of flavour but when they're in something like granola, you just know it's filler. Also it ruins the texture if it's in something crunchy because of the sudden squidge and I hate how these little fuckers get stuck in my teeth when they're dry.
  Sorry, I think this post unleashed years of raisin resentment. But yeah I completely agree that people who don't like them in curries or other savoury dishes are missing out because that slight sweetness is wonderful.
- its not the flavor that's the problem, its textural. Raisins are often chewy little rocks getting in the way of an otherwise pleasant texture.

Pretty sure African food uses it, too.
Come to think of it, what culture doesn't use them?
- Never ate Chinese food with raisins
  EDIT: probably didn't eat enough
  
  One of my favorite Chinese desserts uses them: https://kitchenmisadventures.com/sachima
  
  Theres a traditional bread (bun?) in Chinese called Mantou which can come in a lot of varieties, one being whole grain with raisins
  https://mindymakes.com/walnut-raisin-whole-wheat-mantou

Unexpected pastry raisins should be considered a war crime.
- Thank you for mentioning unexpected. Oatmeal raisin cookies are good, but when you're expecting a chocolate chip the raisin surprise is disgusting.
  
  Honestly, biting into a chocolate chip when you are expecting a raisin is also disgusting.
- Raisins should be considered a war crime.
  FTFY

Your cultural horizon must be very small if you think it is something specific to white people.
- Yeah but white people = ick
  Duh 🤪
- First thing it made me think of was a trip to Morocco
  Second thing it made me think of was how stupidly difficult it was to get a glass of wine there
  Never going back
- They’re American.

Oatmeal Raisin > Chocolate Chip.

If this were another race and another food this would be downvoted to shit
- You're free to test your hypothesis.

Alright, bear with me here.
Back in the middle ages Europeans didn't have access to sugarcane. Because of that, they never even thought to try to breed sugary beets and process those into sugar. The same was true for tree sap or any other possible source of sugar, because why the hell would it even occur to them if they'd never seen sugar?
If a person in the middle ages wanted to make something sweet, their choices were to add honey or to add fruit. Honey was expensive, and the vast majority of the population of Europe were peasants. Honey wasn't something they'd have around all the time. While fruit was way easier to come by, it was only available seasonally. So how do you make a sweet cake in the middle of winter? Dried fruit!
So here's the big kicker about putting raisins in shit: it's been unnecessary for four goddamned centuries. There might be an occasional dish here or there that's been made the same way since before sugar was available, but there's no fucking excuse for it in like 95% of dishes. We live in an age where I - a regular dude who isn't particularly wealthy - can go to the grocery store a mile away and find a dozen kinds of produce that were shipped from the other side of the planet where they're in season. There hasn't been an excuse to ruin perfectly innocent cookies with raisins for hundreds of years.
- Also your explanation doesn't cover why those recipes now include a diabetes inducing amount of sugar on top of the dried fruits
  
  That's a separate issue that we (meaning humanity, not just America) is still dealing with.
  During the second world war chemists figured out how to make cheap fertilizers and pesticides from petroleum. These two innovations shot farm productivity through the roof. Food became more abundant than ever before and therefore became incredibly cheap. Virtually overnight the biggest challenge to people's diets was having too much, not too little.
  For the first generation or two living in this historic abundance, they had no way of seeing the coming health threats. Coming off of literally the entire history of life on this planet having too little to eat instead of too much, they weren't with a "more is more" approach. Cost of ingredients was no longer a barrier to adding more sugar, more salt, and more fat. At least in the US, there was a brief "convenience" fad in cuisine in the 11950s, but gears quickly shifted to increasing portion size and improving taste by the brute force addition of more salt and sugar.
- There hasn’t been an excuse to ruin perfectly innocent cookies with raisins for hundreds of years.
  Counterpoint: The Great Depression
  
  I'm betting there wasn't a big price difference between granulated sugar and raisins back then.

My mom used to put raisins in tuna sandwiches
- I no longer feel bad about the things I've done to her

Seriously! The only reason oatmeal cookies get a bad rap is because of the fucking raisins!
- Oatmeal chocolate chip, when you can find them, are awesome.

Any food where raisins would actually work, dried cranberries or blueberries would be 100x better. This would be things like pastries, bagels, trail mix, etc. Not stuffing, tuna, mac-n-cheese or other savory dishes.
No one ever needs to question if what they just bit into was a rat turd or a fly.
- Couscous with blueberries sounds quite weird
  
  That would be more on the savory side, given that it usually has a lot of garlic in it. Though, if it weren't, cranberries would work better.
- I'm convinced that raisins are only popular because they were a luxury food for our grandparents and they only exist in these dishes because that's what our grandparents thought rich people would do with raisins when they were kids.

To make it better.

Whatever dude, now I can't stop thinking about Grandma's cinnamon-raisin bread

Oh my god, that's disgusting! ~~Naked pics online~~ Raisins in places they don't belong? Where? Where do they use those?

Rice pudding. Tapioca pudding. Both excellent with raisins.
I do love stuffing with dried cranberries though! And traditional Christmas fruitcake with myriad dried fruits and nuts!

I concur with this, and also submit apples/grapes in chicken salad should be considered culinary abuse.
- What's wrong with grapes in chicken salad :p adds some crunch
  
  It's like "New Chicken Salad! Now with juicy blisters!"
  Best case scenario it doesn't make it worse, but it defo doesn't make it any better.
  In my opinion... On the internet...

Bruh raisins, especially ones a little sour are fire in rice

I love sauerkraut, but when you put raisins in there it's a whole next level. For me it's like perfecting perfection, love it!
- Could you please post your exact coordinates? I need to call in an airstrike.
  
  I ate rice with a curry sauce yesterday and I put raisins into the sauce. I LOVE me some raisins in my food.

Raisins belong in their tiny little snack box for small children to enjoy and in well labeled oatmeal raisin cookies. That's it.
- Peshwari naan?
  Teacakes?
  Hot oatmeal?
  Braised shard?
  Jeweled cabbage?
  With goats cheese and bacon?
  cmon live a little
  
  Not for me, friend, but I sure hope you enjoy all those things. I had one too many poorly labeled oatmeal raisin cookies as a small child expecting chocolate chips and grew to hate the things. Honestly I'm not really a dried fruit guy except for the occasional crasin.
  
  Or hear me out, in a bin.
  
  Why ruin goat cheese and bacon like that?
- Trail mix, too.
  
  No, dried cranberries should be used in place of raisins
- Raisins belong too hell, where they came from.

True and I won't apologise

anglo-saxons

Chocolate

One year my mom put chopped up apples in the stuffing. My siblings loved it and I hated it. Fruit does not belong in stuffing.
- I've had apple and chicken sausage and I could see it working, but I'd saute the apples with the seasoning and onions so it's not just a big hunk of apple all by itself.
  When I make a turkey I put an apple and an onion inside for flavor, along with cinnamon and some sage.
  (And, yes, that is Alton Brown's recipe.)
- You can make a stuffing with fruit work, but you need a separate recipe than just tossing apple into it. It makes a more sweet and savory dish instead of a hardcore savory one.

Fucking love this template

Raisins suck

I once stood and watch a workmate pour boiling water into a bowl of stuffing mix, stirred it, and then just ate it wet.
I don't think it ever occurred to him that you're supposed to cook it...
- That's basically the instructions to make it minus the butter.

I am not like the other white people.

Haha racism good when we play the reverse uno card, definitely nothing wrong with that...
How do you expect to convince white racists that racism is bad if you upvote things that are racist towards them?
- What?
  
  racism /rā′sĭz″əm/
  noun
  The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
  Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
  The belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes.
  I know it's just a dumb meme but how do you think racism starts? My experience is it tends to begin as "just a joke" until it's normalised enough that someone feels comfortable enough to take off the mask and either encourage or perform discrimination and/or violence.
  Why tolerate white racism when we don't tolerate any other kinds?

Think about it: anything that has raisins in it could have fit beans instead.

Stuffing is like the only good place for raisins.

95 comments