Years ago, a friend started using the word hygrate.  Its reference has
always been the act of picking the best parts of a food dish.  For
example, hygrating the olives from a salad.  Only taking the part you
like and leaving the rest.  Another definition is "to pick and choose
preferred elements from a conglomeration or collection of disparate
parts".

Well, besides it's use and references from friends, I have been unable
to find any information on the word.  It doesn't seem to appear in any
dictionary.  Although, I'm not sure how it is spelled and this may be
a simple spelling mistake.  My wife thinks it might be a sniglet, btw.

The friend that introduced me to the word liked to read obscure texts
and probably picked it up in one of those books.  He is not the kind
of guy to make up something like this, so I'm fairly certain its
really a word.

I am going out on a limb here, but I feel quite certain that I've found your word.

This really had me stumped. I checked more than a dozen dictionaries,
and 'hygrate' appears in none of them. The root 'hygr-' usually refers
to moisture or humidity, which would have nothing to do with the
meaning of the word you've described.

While I was looking at lists of words beginning with the letter 'h', I
came across the word 'highgrading' (or 'high-grading'). I believe this
is your word. Highgrading is like 'cherry-picking', selecting the best
parts. Its pronunciation is very similar to that of 'hygrating'.

Let me give some online examples of the word in use.

In forestry: 

"High-grading is taking the best, leaving the rest."

Watersheds: Woodland Management: Low Grading vs. High Grading 
http://www.watersheds.org/farm/fgrading.htm
 
In wholesaling:

"It is also a pretty safe bet that the Wholesale Buyer that wants to
pick and choose specific items is 'High Grading."

From a post in the alt.crafts.professional newsgroup
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=39F074F1.CC06D52A%40elpn.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

In mining:

"Freighters would line up at the mine with wagons to transport the
gold ore. As soon as they were out of sight of the mine, the
freighters would begin picking through the gold, pocketing the best
nuggets. 'Highgrading' was the name of this practice, stealing the
highest grade pieces of ore."

JPC Media: Freighting & Highgrading
http://jpc-training.com/highgrading.html

In choosing food:

"My friends, ten-year-old Kaeli and her mom, Linda, and I have been
grazing on trail mix, sandwiches, pasta salads, and other assorted
snacks. In spite of this, I'm still 'high-grading' the chocolate chips
out of the trail mix."

Outside Bozeman: Greater Wildlife in Greater Yellowstone 
http://www.outsidebozeman.com/magazine.php?action=fullArticle&articleID=144

Google Web Search: highgrading OR high-grading
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=highgrading+OR+high-grading

I hope this helps! If this is not the correct word, or if anything
I've said is unclear, please request clarification; I'll be glad to
offer further assistance before you rate my answer.

Best wishes,
pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 25 Mar 2004 16:38 PST

Here's another good example, related to a buyer for a store:

"After a while, I kind of thought that these people were trying to
high-grade my stock. They wanted just the best pieces..."

From a post in the alt.crafts.professional newsgroup
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6gaqc3%24b4p%243%40news.igs.net&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain

Pink,
  Thank you very much for finding our word.  You found it and provided
excellent information.  It has really made our week to to work with
you to solve this riddle.
  Thanks again,
  --Chris

It's odd that, since I answered this question and acquired an
awareness of the word "high-grading," I have heard the word several
times on television. Yet I can't recall ever having heard of
high-grading before I did the research that led to this answer. Must
be that I was ignoring it before, since it seems unlikely that there
would be a sudden upsurge in the use of the word!