Saturday 11 November 2017

Dried fruit season.



When I was small, Christmas was never complete without Satsumas, Brazil nuts, and (best of all); long decorative boxes of sticky Dates.

The other things I loved were those packs of dried Figs, squashed together into homogeneous blocks.

These above are new to me. They are small, individual, dried 'MINI FIGS', that come from Spain. For some reason, they have a slight dusting of Rice flour.


New products usually spread around the world quite quickly, so wherever you are, I expect these will turn-up on your supermarket's shelves for Christmas.

If you see them; try them. They're delicious, and not too sweet. 



31 comments:

  1. Are the long boxes of datges still available in France or U.K. I have never seen them here.

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    1. We still get them here; I don't buy them as they are too sweet. These little Figs are perfect.

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  2. They had better not turn up here! Figs from kalamata are the best here. We buy Greek. Though Lidls will probably have Spanish and Turkish and south African and more. I buy my dates from Lidls. About the only place that sells them, outside Athens.

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  3. The only time I found dates acceptably delicious was in Morocco

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    1. Yes, those big fat fresh dates are wonderful. They're expensive here.

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  4. Fresh figs are too sweet for me so I suspect dried ones will be too.

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  5. My mother used to take a spoonful of Syrup of Figs once a week

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    1. Dangerous stuff. I once was forced to take Paraffin oil; even worse.

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  6. Every year befor Christmas i think of converting my religion, i like so much the "before Christmas talk":) and i like dates, nothing is too sweet for me.

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    1. I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year; I must be getting old.

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  7. We are in Spain and tried them for the first time. I loved it when we were young and things were seasonal, and we had to wait for things to ripe. Now you can get anything anytime, we do try and eat local and seasonal products.

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    1. Are you saying that these are new in Spain too? I've certainly never seen them before (and we're not that far away).

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  8. I haven't had dates(or Brazil nuts) in years. Maybe this year. Christmas when I was young meant a case of mandarin oranges, red Delicious apples, brazil nuts and the dreaded dates and one case of ginger ale. It was special and of course seasonal.

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    1. It's not been the same since Brazil Nuts had to be sold shell-less. OK, the shells were hard to crack, but that's no excuse for banning them.

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    2. Jane, yes it was the same with me, but I like the dates. Reading everyone comments now.

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  9. Why do they need to be shell-less? We can still but them with the shell and yes they are hard to crack. I just prefer walnuts,always.

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    1. In the UK, they now have to be sold shell-less.

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  10. I love dates, grew up with them.
    Living in Arizona and California all the wonderful dates and fig were grown in this area.
    As a child I always knew it was Christmas when Tangerines, dried fruits and a bowl of nuts in the shell appeared.
    Must check out to see if these will show up at the markets.

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. Very Christmassy; Dates, Figs, Tangerines, and nuts. They take it all very seriously here.

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  11. I'll have to look out for these

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  12. I love dried fruit season too. My favourites are the Medjool dates from Waitrose. On holiday in Italy recently (I also bought garlic to plant out at the allotment, fragrant lemons and a big bunch of dried chillies) I brought home a pack of dried figs stuffed with almonds, the nicest I've eaten in a long time. Crumpets with Hampshire honey for tea today!

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    Replies
    1. Some of those Italian Lemons are wonderful. I don't understand why they're not generally available outside of Italy. Crumpets and honey... hmmmm.

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  13. Our Walnut crop was completely annihilated by frost this year, but luckily I have plenty from 2016 still in reserve.

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  14. Here in Oz we try to follow these cold climate traditions... well some of us do ! We always had dried grapes - Muscatels I think they were called - seeds in so sort of crunchy, still on stems and sweet, as well as dried figs but these items are now so expensive that they are rarely to be seen anywhere. Aussie figs are quite tasteless as far as I can judge.

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