A Crash Course In Cranberries Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading that some cooks will insist on making their own cranberry  sauce, laden with plump whole berries and ingredients like honey or orange zest.  Others swear solely of the stuff in a can.  Americans in the latter camp consume more than 5 million gallons of jellied cranberry sauce each year - just between Thanksgiving and Christmas!  While 68% of Americans say they love the taste, another 15% just love the way it jiggles.  If you've ever seen a slippery cylinder of jellied cranberries wriggle out of its can, you'll recognize what Farmers' Almanac aptly describes as the satisfying whoosh-plop.  The man who first crammed cranberries into a can was New Englander Marcus L. Urann.  In 1912, wanting to extend the berries' short selling season, developed a sauce that could be preserved in big batches.  He sold his jellied concoction under the name Ocean Spray Preserving Co.  Later, he joined forces with two competitors to form a cooperative that today comprises more than 700 family farmers.  As one of only a handful of native fruits cultivated in North America, cranberries were an important indigenous food source. Vitamin C and antioxidants, especially anthocyanin and flavanols, give the tiny, tart berries their dark crimson hue.  Native American tribes from the Cape Cod Pequots to the South Jersey Lenni-Lanape, and farther west to the Algonquins of Wisconsin, culled cranberries in the wild from low, long-running vines within bogs and marshes.  Bogs are one of North America's most distinctive types of wetlands: spongy beds with thick moss, acidic waters and peat deposits.  The North American cranberry harvest kicks into high gear every autumn with the top-producing state, Wisconsin, producing around 60% of the annual U.S. crop.  Massachusetts, the second-largest producer, is home to the oldest continuously cultivated cranberry seeds - some vines are more than 150 years old.  Iconic images of farmers walking in knee-high, ruby red seas of cranberries propagate a popular myth: that cranberries grow in water.  In fact, they have air pockets that allow them to float.  So the night before the berries are ready to harvest, flowers flood the bog.  The next day, they churn the water with giant water reels, or "egg-beaters," to shake the fruit from their vines.  Then, crews wade in and corral the bogging berries with large brooms.  These cranberries are considered "wet harvested" and are used mostly for juice drinks and sauces.  About 200 cranberries get squeezed into each can.  "Dry harvesting," by contrast, yields fruit that is sold fresh in the produce aisle.  In this case, a mechanical picker gently combs the berries off the vines and deposits them into burlap sacks, often to await a helicopter that swoops in and airlifts the berries out of the bog.  How's that for a dramatic exit?  Whether you stir up your own sauce, shimmy it out of a can or simply want a serving of table side trivia this Thanksgiving, our all-American cranberry is the answer!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.