Cranberry Month: Let’s Talk Turkey

Fall had arrived in Prince Edward Island as “Susan made the first cranberry pies," wrote the ever observant Lucy Maud Montgomery in Anne of Ingleside (1936). Ogden Nash was more sanguine, versifying of young ones’ habits: “And another thing about little fingers, they are always strawberry-jammed or cranberry-jellied-y.”

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving with roast turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. North America’s gift to the world, these seasonal staples are a tradition few would forego – whatever date they celebrate the holiday. Unfortunately, not all is at peace in the cranberry world. California’s raisin raisers are verbally abusive of the upstart “craisins” promoted by Ocean Spray. “They’re copycats! Why don’t they call them cranberries, or cranbots, or cranbogs? They grow in bogs, don’t they?” Ernest Bedrosian of the National Raisin Co. howled to the Los Angeles Times. A red light was raised, and another public relations dream was left to molder on the compost heap. Most familiar as a sauce or jelly accompaniment to poultry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, the American cranberry native to northeast North America has other culinary uses in the kitchen. As Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote, they can be made into pies. There are also numerous recipes for cookies and other comestibles. Native peoples dried the berries for future use in less fruitful times. The same are available nowadays out of season in bulk food stores.

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Then there is cranberry juice. Does it or dos it not assist the urinary system? The jury still seems to be out on this one. Many qualified medical practitioners recommend drinking a glass or so against urinary tract infection or following surgery on the nether regions. Health stores luxuriate in it. Others are not so sure if not downright disparaging. Notwithstanding, it tastes pretty good – especially mixed with a shot of gin or vodka. Early colonists to North America immediately recognized the native cranberry as being similar to its European cousin, Vaccinium oxycoccos. There is a record from 1777 in northwest England of them being a “considerable article of commerce” sold fresh each market day for a month or so then, shipped elsewhere “for making the well-known cranberry-tarts,” [Roy Vickers: A Dictionary of Plant Lore (Oxford: 1995)]. As an accompanying sauce for the Thanksgiving turkey though, despite popular depictions, it only became associated in the early 1800s, according to the National Geographic’s Catherine Zimmerman, who cites food historian Andrew F. Smith. The vitriolic Ernest Bedrosian was correct, however, when he fumed that cranberries come from bogs. Some of these bogs, especially in the easternmost reaches of the continent may be natural. In fact, you couldn’t get much farther east than Sable Island where, in the 19th century, residents shipped barrel loads of berries to the mainland. Others are artificial such as the 18,000 acres that make Wisconsin the leading producer of the tart ripe red fruit. Even farther west, historic Fort Langley, British Columbia, celebrates the harvest each year on the Saturday closest to Thanksgiving, Canadian style, with an annual Cranberry Festival with literally tons of the fruit on sale along with seminars on such essentials as wine terroir. All this plus growing health concerns especially in Europe have boosted North American cranberry exports in recent years. Indeed in November 2006, the Financial Post was noting that 26 percent of the U.S. cranberry crop ended up abroad, a jump of 70 percent over the previous six years. Not bad at all for something from the swamps.