About this dried alycha
Alycha — cherry plum — grows wild across the Caucasus and has been dried here for generations. It is its own species, not a garden plum: smaller, sharper, closer in character to a dried sour cherry.
Halved and dried without added sugar; sulphur dioxide (E220) is used as a preservative during drying, so the colour and sourness that define it stay intact. Contains sulphites. Deep red-brown, dense, and pleasantly sharp rather than sweet.
Eat it as a tart, chewy snack, or use it the way Caucasian cooking does — stirred into a meat stew or a rice pilaf for acidity, the way you might reach for a dried barberry or a squeeze of pomegranate.
