Trader Joe's Organic Turkish Apricots

Nina's View 

Kptoooie!

Unsulfured dried fruit, and especially apricots, cannot be expected to be pretty. They're gonna oxidize, that's just the way it is. You go unsulfured, you're gonna get a brown dried fruit. So I was prepared for that aesthetic disappointment.

What I was not prepared for:

1) The first apricot out of the bag still had a stone in it. I'm all for "organic," but I'd rather not break a tooth. Still—crunchy-granola-girl that I am, I was prepared to accept the occasional pit, much as I once flew the underarm hair flag as point of natural pride. Pits forever, man! I can dig it. (Oy.)

2) The second apricot out of the bag had a sour, off flavor. I don't mind ugly, but the whole point of dried fruit is concentrated, aromatic fruit flavor and sweetness. But, say I to myself as I chew into this second apricot, maybe it was just the odd less-than-ripe fruit in the bunch… and then my molars hit the grit.

GRIT, people. As in sand. Or quite possibly DIRT.

That is way, way too organic for me.

I spit it out.

And, although I repeat I AM NOT A SLOW LEARNER, I fished in the bag and bit into Apricot #3.

And lo and behold! MORE GRIT!

And that was quite enough of that for me. I took the rest of the package back for a refund.

I emphasize that I am not a flighty or frequent returner of products. Something has to be truly unacceptable for me to bring it back to the store. These apricots and those fresh rice noodles are just dire.

My recommendation: buy some other dried apricots. And by "some other" I mean DEFINITELY NOT THESE.