Sultanas (or raisins, if you're of the US persuasion)—I hate 'em. I don't hate much, but I hate sultanas. I mean, why would you do that to a grape? I spent a good chunk of my younger life picking sultanas out of breakfast cereal, until I discovered the concept of making my own and (here's the brilliant bit) not putting the sultanas in.

So, sultanas are generally bad. Bad in cereal. Bad in fruit cake. Bad in fruit and nut chocolate. Just bad, bad, bad. Have I mentioned that I hate 'em? Grrr.

Anyway, my point (I do have one)—these everyday sultanas are bad, but they at least have the decency to declare themselves. Fruit cake, fruit and nut chocolate, Sultana Bran—the names are a bit of a giveaway (although I have to question the validity of classifying sultanas as fruit, which is a little like calling corn flakes a vegetable).

I can avoid these sultanas. And I do. With intent and malice aforethought. What really ruins my day is the stealth sultana.

Stop sniggering, this is serious. The stealth sultana is a real issue. It lies in wait, hidden in places that no decent sultana (now there's an oxymoron) should be, just waiting to gross me out.

Apple danishes. What the hell are sultanas doing in there? Making me afraid to have dessert, that's what. Call them dried-fruit danishes, call them apple and sultana danishes, call them an abomination of nature, but for goodness sake at least give people some kind of a warning. Lives could be lost.

Then there's fried rice. Not fried rice and sultanas, people. Now, you could argue there are all kinds of things in fried rice that aren't in the title. And you would be right. But I would still tell you to shut up because the key point here is that those things are not as nauseating as sultanas. Without even knowing what the other ingredients are, I can still pretty much guarantee they won't be as bad as those evil little wrinkly suckers.

Finally, we come to the absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel, can't get any grosser, completely hideous, absolutely worst sultana of them all. The sultana that lurks in dishes like curries. Dishes that are wet. These little travesties start life as average, everyday horrid sultanas, but take a sharp turn for the worse when they get added to the recipe and become stealth sultanas. This is bad, but the true evil is yet to come—next these atrocities start to absorb moisture.  Moisture that allows them to re-hydrate.  To rehydrate into a disgusting, reanimated version of a grape.  The truly hideous entity, otherwise known as...

The zombie sultana.

It's a wonder I can sleep at night.