I'm John. I read.

Hi, John.

I read. A lot. I am compelled to read. Newspapers, magazines, books, web pages, backs of cereal boxes. I read 'em all. Can't go to sleep at night without reading at least a half-hour. Gotta read.

So it's no surprise that while I was making dinner last night, and waiting for things to bake or boil or something, I found myself reading a bag of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing. The ingredients list, to be precise, as I was wondering what they thought constituted "herbs" and "seasoning" justifying the product name (as opposed to, for example, "Bag o' Bread Crumbs"). All sorts of bread ingredients, of course, and corn syrup and salt. Then you get to the magic line of delineation, "Contains 2% or less of:" More bread/grain ingredients, "spices," molasses and honey, nonfat milk and cultured buttermilk, and nothing I'd call "herbs" other than parsley. Vinegar. Onion powder. But the oddest mystery ingredient was - "raisin juice concentrate."

Raisin juice concentrate? What a concept! They crush raisins to free whatever miniscule moisture is present, and then reduce that to a more concentrated form? I bet it's expensive. And I bet you could make a great dessert wine from it.

Alas, no. "Raisin juice" is what you get when you soak raisins in water, and the resulting liquid is what gets concentrated. And it's used in bakery products as a natural preservative and mold retardant, and a natural coloring agent.