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.
You can find isolated examples from western cuisines (often rich people food) but mixing savoury and sweet is still an exception. You don’t get things like how palm sugar is used in so many savory staples from SE Asian. Applesauce or quince paste aren’t as ubiquitous in western food as chutney is in Indian.
I’ve also just met way more westerners who talk about salty/sweet mixes being gross. Raisins in rice, pineapple on pizza and fruit in salad are all things I’ve heard (mostly americans or australians) react strongly to.
I can not agree. As I said, potato and apple meet in half of my regional dishes. And those are farmer’s food, not rich.
Scandinavian and Alpine dishes love lingonberry sauce on dark meat or schnitzel.
I think the best way, is to not think of “western cuisine” as a thing that exists uniformly.
PS: obviously we cook differently than SE Asia, but red cabbage is sweet, carrots are sweet and caramelised onions are sweet. And they are really often used with savory dishes.
Lingonberry sauce on meat, ham on melon, apple in coleslaw… Apple sauce on hash browns! I think every cuisine has combinations like that, but the specific ingredients are location specific.
I’m not very familiar with German cooking though (if that’s what you meant by Rhineland) so if you got some tips and/or must tries please enlighten me :3
edit: I removed most of my message since it added nothing to the discussion.
Kartoffelpuffer (which can be described as potato pancake) with apple sauce.
Or Rhenish Sour Roast a beef roast with sweet and sour aromas. But an involved process.
If you’re feeling risky: Himmel un Ääd/ Sky and Earth . I have never eaten it myself (so far).
If you’re feeling risky: Himmel un Ääd/ Sky and Earth . I have never eaten it myself (so far).
Nothing risky about it, it all comes down to if you like the fried blood sausage. Try it, it’s awesome.
The one in the picture doesn’t look good though. Slices are too thin and it’s been in the pan too long.
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.
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.
Nah, that’s a happy little accident.
BOOOOO! Raisins are valid (at times)!
I would never buy a pain aux raisins with chocolat chips in it but sometimes I’m wronged by a baker… People should properly label food or mention this things to their customer.
Raisins should be considered a war crime.
FTFY
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
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Oatmeal Raisin > Chocolate Chip.
Yep but oatmeal chocolate beats them all
But it’s better without the raisins…
Nah…
Trolling used to mean something.
bait used to be false
Your cultural horizon must be very small if you think it is something specific to white people.
Yeah but white people = ick
Duh 🤪
They’re American.
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.
If this were another race and another food this would be downvoted to shit
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“it’s ok to punch some people, but not others” 🤡
You’re free to test your hypothesis.
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.
My mom used to put raisins in tuna sandwiches
I no longer feel bad about the things I’ve done to her
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
Or hear me out, in a bin.
Why ruin goat cheese and bacon like that?
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.
Raisins belong too hell, where they came from.
Trail mix, too.
No, dried cranberries should be used in place of raisins
Por qué no los dos?
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!
Whatever dude, now I can’t stop thinking about Grandma’s cinnamon-raisin bread
To make it better.
