The Mystery of the Missing Muscats

by

James K. Sayre

Note: a December 2006 update: Muscat raisins are available year round from www.sunmaid.com. Go to Gift Shop link, then Bulk Fruits and find #62: Muscat Raisins, in a five pound box for about $22 US plus shipping. Or call Sunmaid at 800-786-6243. Cheers.

Every autumn the bakers of traditional fruitcakes in America have to gather together special ingredients: certain spices, a variety of nuts to be shelled and of course, a nice selection of dried fruits. Last fall, I was going through my yearly ritual of shopping and gathering of these special ingredients when it suddenly dawned on me that there were no Muscats for sale in my local grocery store.

What exactly is a Muscat? Is a species of rare and somewhat musky-smelling wild cat that lives only in the Great Western Range of mountains in Tasmania? No. Actually, the Muscat is a very special type of raisin. It is quite large, blackish in color, very sweet and quite sticky. It certainly does deserve to be included among the dried fruits that go into a traditional American dark fruitcake.

Muscat Raisins are the dried versions of fresh Muscat grapes. These large yellowish grapes have an ancient lineage in the Mediterranean area. They were widely planted by the Phoenicians in many parts of Spain over two thousand years ago.

Muscat grapes were brought to California by the Spanish missionaries over two centuries ago. These grapes were planted at each Mission and were used as the base for Muscatel wine. They were also dried into Muscat Raisins. These Muscat grapes had seeds. When they were deseeded by pushing the seeds out through the skins, the process brought sugar onti the surface of the grapes. When these deseeded grapes were dried, this sugar made the Muscat Raisins sticky. They were still the most popular variety of raisin until the Thompson Seedless Raisin was created.

Late in the nineteenth century, a certain California grape grower, a Mr. William Thompson by name, imported a seedless variety of grape called the Lady deCoverly. It would soon bear his name, to wit, the Thompson Seedless Raisin. This small black seedless raisin rapidly became very popular with consumers. It was not sticky on its surface because being dried from a seedless grape it did not have to go through a de-seeding procedure which inevitably produced stickness. Within a few years of its introduction, the Thompson Seedless Raisin virtually took over the retail raisin market in California and elsewhere in the United States. The raisin market, which had long been dominated by traditional Muscat Raisins became to be dominated by Thompson Seedless Raisin. The sticky Muscats were then relegated to the role of specialty item. The commonly seen golden raisin is actually a Thompson Seedless Raisin which has been oven-dehydrated and treated with sulfur to keep its golden color.

In recent years, Muscat Raisins seem to have become an increasingly rare winter holiday food item in California grocery stores. Late each fall I try to bake a batch of traditional dense, dark fruitcakes. I used to simply go to my local grocery store each fall for a couple of boxes of Muscat Raisins. They came all stuck together in a sticky mass in their familiar turquoise and gold box..

Several years ago, many of the larger grocery chains instituted a system-wide computerized inventory system. If certain food items were "slow selling," they were simply removed from the shelves and replaced by other food items that would bring a higher profit to the grocery. If you wanted a certain obscure or uncommon food product and you could not find it on their store shelves, generally, you were just out of luck.

I assumed that the Muscat Raisins had been bumped off of my local grocery shelves last fall for this reason. None of their store clerks had any knowledge to the contrary about the fate of the Muscats. Their familiar turquoise and gold packaging was no longer to be seen in the dried fruits section of the grocery.

Calls and visits to other local San Francisco Bay Area grocery stores came up empty-handed as far as finding a source of Muscat Raisins.

An exhaustive search of the Web and the Internet yielded a few Web pages with some discussion of Muscat Grapes and Muscat Raisins, but no hints of where they might be purchased.

I was shocked and depressed that in this day and age of mass communications and information overload, a simple traditional holiday food could simply vanish from store shelves without a trace.

With some measure of desperation, I searched the Yellow Pages of the telephone book, found a section for "Dried Fruits" and called the three local businesses that were listed. One never answered, the second one had no idea of where I might find my Muscats and the third suggested that I try calling middle Eastern food shops. I had no better luck at the two middle Eastern food shops in my search for my Muscats. One shop in the northern part of Peninsula said "yes" to my query about whether they stocked the Muscat Raisins. Excitedly, I drove some twenty miles to their shop, but alas, there was a communication failure, for they only stocked the common black Thompson and golden raisins. I had been suffering under a delusion of there being some connection between Muscat Raisins and the old city of Muscat in Oman, which is located on southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

After examining a box of Sun-Maid Zante Currants, it dawned on me that un-Maid probably had a Web site. After a quick search on the Web, I found their site. Sun Maid is the trade name for the marketing arm of the Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California. They have a section of their Web site which lists the dried fruit items available for purchase by mail order or in person at their store in Kingsburg, California. I saw golden raisins and the black Thompson raisins listed for sale, but not my by now beloved Muscat Raisins. I sent an E-mail inquiry and a couple of days later the reply solved the mystery of the missing Muscats.

It seems that the consumer demand for Muscat Raisins had fallen off in recent years, so in 1998, the Sun-Maid group had discontinued production and sale of this type of raisin. There must have been a consumer outcry over the disappearance of this raisin from the grocery shelves, for the E-mail promised that the there would be a 1999 crop of Muscat Raisins and that they would be for sale by mail order and at the Sun Maid Growers of California store, 13525 South Bethel Avenue, Kingsburg, California 93631. Information is available at 1-800-SUN-MAID or 1-559-896-8000. The Web address is http://www.sunmaid.com/. I learned that the new crops of raisins usually are ready for market starting in October.

Kingsburg is an old farming town located just north of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley in California. It founded by Swedish settlers over a century ago. As recently as 1921, the town's population was 94% Swedish. Every year on the third weekend in May they have their Swedish Festival. It is the center of the modern raisin business in California. It makes a fine destination for a weekend trip from San Francisco Bay Area. But if you are planning on buying some Muscats, be sure to call again to check if they have any on hand. The new crops of raisins usually start appearing in October.

Well, the 1998 - 1999 winter holiday season fruitcakes will be late this year due to the long fruitless search for Muscats. The fruitcakes will have to be made without Muscat Raisins, but the next batch in the 1999 - 2000 winter holiday season will be able to include this traditional ingredient. The grocery store chain's system-wide computerized inventory system was not to blame for the missing Muscats. My apologies for thinking such negative thoughts about the computerization of grocery inventory.

Etymology:

[Etymology: Muscat Raisin muscat Old French muscat Old Provencal muscat , "musky" (flavor), from musc, musk, Italian moscato, musk, wine, literally, having the smell or flavor of musk, Late Latin muscus, musk + raisin Middle English raisin Old French raisin, reisin, grape Latin racemus, cluster of grapes].

Note: There seems to be no relation of the Muscat raisin to the city of Muscat or Masqat which is an ancient seaport in Oman on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

References:

Harris, W. T., Editor, Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, India Paper Edition, 1924. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Co.

Morris, William, Editor, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1975. Boston: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., and Houghton Mifflin Co.

Neufeldt, Victoria, Editor, Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language, Third College Edition, 1988. Cleveland, Ohio: Webster's New World.

Onions, C. T., Editor, The Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles, Third Edition, 1955. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

Partridge, Eric, Origins: a Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 1958. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Sun Maid Growers of California Store Web site. It may be viewed at http://www.sunmaid.com/.

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Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please feel free to Email the author at sayresayre@yahoo;com. sayresayre@yahoo.com

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