Besides raisins, what other dried fruits and vegetables have their own names?

Question

Dried grapes¹ have their own special word: "raisins". There are a few words for different types of dried meats ("jerky", "prosciutto", etc.). But other than "raisin", I can't think of any special words for dried fruits or vegetables. Dried apples are just "dried apples". Dried tomatoes are "sun-dried tomatoes". And so forth.

Is "raisin" the only word of this kind, or are there any others? Since this seems to be a scarce type of word, I would count foreign language words if they're used at least occasionally as loan-words.

¹ _{I see from the answer to this more-specific question ( Is there a word for dried blueberries? ) that "raisin" can also be used as a word for some other dried fruits. The question also reminded me that there are a few recently coined words such as "craisin", which suggests that older words of this type are scarce.}

Answer 1

One obvious answer is sultanas (AKA golden raisins, defined as dried white grapes - Cambridge). A better answer is prunes (dried plums - Cambridge ) . Interestingly raisin and prune are both the French name for the matching undried fruit.

Another oddity is currant both a small raisin and (black-, white-, or red-) a completely different fruit (Cambridge again).

They're not dried but gherkins are worth a mention too.

Answer 2

A number of Spanish names for chili peppers have migrated into English (at least in parts of the western and southwestern United States, where many types of chilies are sold in fruit and vegetable markets). Three varieties of these peppers have different names when fresh and when dry:

• poblano chilies (fresh) are called ancho chilies (dried)

• chilaca chilies (fresh) are called pasilla chilies (dried)

• jalapeño peppers (fresh) are called morita or chipotle peppers (smoked & dried)

A book called 12 Essential Chili Peppers for Mexican Cooking shows pictures of some of these peppers.

Whether you're inclined to view these words as foreign or as naturalized English depends on where you live and how interested you are in Mexican-style cooking. (The same goes for words like enchilada, tamale, taco, and molé, I suppose.) In the San Francisco Bay Area, the words ancho, pasilla, and chipotle are widely recognized; morita is probably less familiar. I have seen all of the pepper varieties listed above (except fresh chilacas) for sale at the vegetable market where I shop.

Answer 3

Goji berries are dried wolfberries (Lycium barbarum)

If you saw a fresh wolfberry and you knew it looked like the thing on a packet of something that contained "Goji berries", you might call the fresh berry a Goji berry too, but actually Goji are always dried. The name comes from Chinese where Goji is specifically the name of the dried berry.

Answer 4

The trademarked word Craisins® has been coined to refer to Ocean Spray's specific brand of sweetened dried cranberries, however you will also see the word being used generically for any form of dried cranberries.

Answer 5

Prunes for plums is another option.

The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.

Answer 6

Dried apricot was historically an important commodity along the Silk Road because of its long shelf life without refrigeration. Words for it were borrowed into Russian: kuragá (stress on the last syllable) and uryúk (likewise), the difference being that the latter is dried with the pit still inside. No similar term exists for English, although I wonder if perhaps Hindi or Urdu borrowed such words, in which case they could make their way into the local English vocabulary.

Incidentally, 'Due to the popular U.S. perception of prunes being used only for relief of constipation, and being the subject of related joking, many distributors stopped using the word "prune" on packaging labels in favour of [... drumroll ...] "dried plums".'

Answer 7

I had the same idea as choster and looked at Wikipedia's list of dried foods.

I found two more words you might want to consider. I checked the Cambridge Dictionaries, Collins dictionary, Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam Webster and listed their entries where applicable alongside Wikipedia's description

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Ristra

Ristra – Wikipedia

"A ristra is an arrangement of drying chili pepper pods. [...] Garlic can also be arranged into a ristra".

Ristra – Collins dictionary

"a string of dried chilli peppers, sometimes used as decoration

Origin

Late 19th century; earliest use found in Los Angeles Daily Times. From Spanish ristra string, especially a string of garlic or onions, later also of chillies, etc., ultimately from classical Latin restis."

Ristra – Oxford Dictionaries

"A string or garland of dried chillis or other produce, often used as a decoration."

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Chuño

Chuño – Wikipedia

"a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by [...][repeatedly] exposing a frost-resistant variety of potatoes to the very low night temperatures of the Andean Altiplano, freezing them, and subsequently exposing them to the intense sunlight of the day".

Chuño – Merriam Webster: Only listed in their paid unabridged dictionary.

Answer 8

In the UK at least, he simple term date refers to the dried fruit. The more rarely seen (and higher-priced) fresh dates are always referred to as such.