GRAPES. 355 
sugar becomes partly converted into lactic acid. In the Song 
of Solomon occurs the pleasant passage, “the fig tree putteth 
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a 
good smell: Arise. my love, my fair one, and come away.” 
With respect to table scraps for the poor (Epicure, 1898), “a 
little ingenuity may often render these tempting, and appetising. 
Half a bunch of grapes, and a couple of spoonfuls of jelly (lemon, 
or wine) left from dinner, do not by themselves look particularly 
attractive, one has to admit; but just melt the jelly, and set 
the grapes therein, using a small pudding basin, or brawn basin, 
as a mould, and see how glad some sick child will be of the morsel, 
though your servants would probably disdain to touch it. Verily 
the poor may easily be fed with the crumbs which fall from rich 
men’s tables, did the rich only know how to utilize such crumbs. 
There are stalls at some of the Paris markets where may be seen 
portions of foods laid out, the relics of dainty dinners from 
restaurants, and large households: a morsel of fish, a simple 
cutlet, a spoonful of bavaroise, all disposed neatly together as one 
of such portions, to be sold for a few sous, under the name of an 
‘arlequin.’ These scraps in England go to help fill the hog-tub, 
or into the dust-hole, because no one has taken the trouble to 
teach the English cook how she should put away her * beauc- 
restes’ tidily.” 
In countries where the fruit can be successfully dried certain 
kinds of grapes are converted into raisins, always specially 
associated with Christmas time. To quote again the Song of 
Solomon, when the Bride feeling faint cries out, “ Stay me with 
‘ashishah,’ comfort me with apples,” the genuine sense of 
this Hebrew word is “ raisin-cakes,” as long familiar to scholars ; 
and now the revised version puts it, “‘ Stay ye me with raisins, 
comfort me with apples.” 
Muscatels are known as “ raisins of the sun,” because left upon 
the tree to dry in the sunshine before being gathered. Grapes 
can be better cured and dried, because of local conditions, in 
certain parts of Spain than elsewhere, especially near Malaga. 
The Valentia, or pudding raisins, are likewise imported from 
Spain. Sultanas, which are destitute of stones, or seeds, are 
received from Smyrna. “Surpassing even the banana in 
nutritive value (Dr. Hutchison) is the group of dried fruits 
which includes the raisin, and the date.” Raisin-tea is found to — 
be of the same proteid value as milk, and much more easily 
