Whole Fruit
February 29th, 2004
Flashback: It’s summer 1984 and a young robotperson is idly exploring
the departure lounge at Manchester airport. The video games have been
checked for free credits, and the chances of finding Star Wars figures
in Malta are being idly weighed-up. Mother returns from a browse in that
airport speciality, the perfume and chocolate shop. In her hands is a
250g bar of brown gold: Cadbury’s Whole Fruit.
Cut to present day, and a frustrated robotperson is searching in vain
for a similarly raisiny treat in the Sainsbury’s chocolate aisle…
The lack of Whole Fruit in the Cadbury’s range has long been puzzling
to me. There’s Fruit & Nut, obviously, and Whole Nut is easy to score,
so why not Whole Fruit? Think: tasty sweet raisins set
in Cadbury’s best, and none of the tooth-jarring distraction of rogue
almonds.
When Mother made the miraculous purchase of an actual bar of Whole Fruit
(and I’m not making this up – it had green grapes on the wrapper rather
than the black of a Fruit and Nut packet) it was the holy grail of treats
– more so for it’s singular rarity.
As I stared at the bars on the supermarket shelf, the memory of this
came back to me and I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Since
new year I’ve done pretty well in the kitchen: I’ve made brownies twice,
baked a very tasty chilli and tomato flat-bread (a yeasty first for me
– see photo) and last month I made enough meat balls to last us a week.
Whole Fruit seemed trivial in comparison and so I bought a block of Dairy
Milk, melted it down and threw in a couple of handfuls of raisins. Half
an hour in the freezer later, and voila: Whole Fruit
It didn’t last long enough for a photo.