Veronica "I grew up very poor in Maine. I don't know if there were apricots in the grocery stores, but even if there were my mother would not have bought them. I tried dried ones once and wasn't terribly impressed so never considered fresh ones until Sarah brought some from Bubba's tree."

I grew up poor myself, I didn't know it till I grew up and did the math. My parents had a chicken farm in Sonoma County till the bottom dropped out of the market and they got "real jobs". Between what we raised and grew and traded with our neighbors ("we'll give you two sheep, we get half a steer") we ate VERY well. We had a small orchard, my Mom still cans some but I now know we were not well off at the time.

One thing my parents said was the reason we supported the farm laborers strikes is that we earned what they did, only difference was we owned the land.

My first job was in the nearby dried pear factory and I'm still not too keen about them. Dried apricots are kinda iffey: they can be really bad or pretty good. Good thing to do is stick 'em in a little port or sweet'ish wine (non alch is fine) and they plump up really nice.