Fruit Salad - Fruit Cocktail

Fruit Cocktail

Fruit cocktail is often sold canned and is a staple of cafeterias, but can also be made fresh. The use of the word "cocktail" in the name does not mean that it contains alcohol, but refers to the secondary definition "An appetizer made by combining pieces of food, such as fruit or seafood". Fruit cocktail is sometimes used to make pruno.

Fruits salad is also great for parties. The person who makes it can spice it up with a variety of fruits (pineapple,banana, mango, and peach) while some people stick to one fruit such as: berries (cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries) that are full of antioxidants essential for good health.

In the United States, the USDA stipulates that canned "fruit cocktail" must contain a certain percentage distribution of pears, grapes, cherries, peaches, and pineapples to be marketed as fruit cocktail. It must contain fruits in the following range of percentages:

• 30% to 50% diced peaches, any yellow variety
• 25% to 45% diced pears, any variety
• 6% to 16% diced pineapple, any variety
• 6% to 20% whole grapes, any seedless variety
• 2% to 6% cherry halves, any light sweet or artificial red variety (usually maraschino cherries)

Both William Vere Cruess of the University of California, Berkeley and Herbert Gray of the Barron-Gray Packing Company of San Jose, California have been credited with the invention of fruit cocktail. Canned fruit cocktail and canned fruit salad are similar, but fruit salad contains larger fruit while fruit cocktail is diced.