Who ate the first raisin or prune?

Dear Matthew Alice:

I'm wondering who was the first person or people to eat a raisin or a prune. While they do taste very good, you must admit that the appearance is like a rotten grape or plum. It must have taken quite a bit of courage for that first bite.

-- A Regular Guy, Mission Beach

A prune's a thing of beauty compared to grubs, worms, twigs, and the guy in the cave next door. Survival was survival. Bug-eating and cannibalism make the aesthetics of the raisin pale by comparison. While the hunters were out hunting, the gatherers gathered whatever the heck moved slow enough to grab. Human beings have eaten grapes for a couple of million years. The fact that we could enjoy them later as raisins was pure gravy.