Apricots
Drying Apricots
This year's apricots are juicy and sweet. We started drying apricots recently on June 24th and have many to dry yet.
When we harvest our apricots, we don't pick all the fruit right off the tree. We only pick the good ripe fruit. We will come back to a tree many times before all the fruit is picked. When the fruit is picked, we slice and dry it as soon as we can. In the video-tour you will see the large machine that slices the apricots in half before they are laid on the tray. The apricots are then laid with the inside face up on trays to be dried.
When the apricots are sorted, the most ripe and sweet apricots are set aside to be sliced by hand. These apricots are used to make Slab-Apricots, the sweetest and tastiest of all dried apricots because they are so ripe when they are dried.
Want to Sharpen your thinking?
According to studies at Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center in North Dakota, Apricots are loaded with the mineral zinc which aids the metabolism of neurotransmitters such as dopamine. This will enhance mental clarity helping you solve sticky situations faster.
Protect your eyes
Many times growing up I heard how good carrots were for my eyes. I began to think carrots were the only thing good for eyesight. A serving of our Dried Apricots contains 58% of our recommended intake of vitamin A which is a powerful antioxidant that helps prevent free radical damage from occurring to the eye's lens and other parts of the boy.
Drying Apricots Video
Get a glimpse of what it's like on a farm where fruit is dried. Take a look at our minute and a half video of us slicing and drying apricot.
Labels: Making Dried Apricots
posted by Michael Colombo at
9:34 AM
2 Comments:
I very much enjoyed the mechanized video for cutting fruit.
My grandparents had a dry yard on the corner of Hatch and 7th in Hughson. My dad ran the dry yard and my mother was a cutter. That's how they met. My first job was cutting fruit, mainly apricots, in that dry yard. I can still taste the ripe, mushy apricots that were almost too ripe too cut. I still have a love for dried fruit. My dad, Ralph Squire, is probably the largest individual purchaser of dried fruits and nuts from Bella Viva. :) Being a connoisseur of dried fruit and nuts, I must say that Bella Viva most definitely has the most premium quality dried fruits and nuts!!
Esther,
I'm glad you enjoy our fruit. And that is such a fun story about how your parents met. I'm so glad you shared it with us. I recently found out that my parents met thought the fruit business too! When my dad's parents from Oakdale ran out of Red Haven Peaches that they would take to Sonora and Jamestown supermarkets back in the 60s, they started buying them from my mom's parents in Modesto.
Here is another fun story I just got in my email that I think we all can enjoy:
“I enjoyed the short video on drying apricots. It is amazing , the changes that have come about since I cut my first apricots to dry. It was in 1935. I was 12 years old. We cut the apricots by hand and laid them on trays. The trays were stacked on little cars that ran on little railroad tracks and were rolled into sulpher houses where sulpher was burned. Then they were laid out in the sun to dry. I see that they are still dried that way. I lived in California most of my life and cut a lot of fruit to dry. Lots of apricots, peaches and nectarines. This was in the Chowchilla and Planada area. There is no better sweet treat than dried fruit.”
Thanks for the great stories! =)
Michael
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