It is believed the word “cranberry,” first referenced by early Europeans, specifically Dutch and German settlers in America, was so named either because the expanding flower, stem, calyx, and petals of the cranberry vine resembled the neck, head, and bill of cranes inhabiting the New England bogs or because the birds ate the berries.  Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the genus Vacciniium.  

They have dark pink flowers with fully exposed stamens and are pollinated by domestic honey bees.

The fruit, a berry that is bigger than the leaves of the plant and initially white, turns a deep scarlet color when fully ripe.  They are sometimes referred to as bounceberries, because ripe ones bounce and apparently the higher the bounce the riper the berry.

Cranberries grow wild in northern Europe and in the northern climates of North America where they are also extensively cultivated.  They are a major commercial crop in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin.  Wisconsin is the leading grower with over half the U.S. production, followed by Massachusetts in second place.

In North America, Native Americans were the first to use cranberries as a food source.  They called the red berries Sassamanash, and it is believed that they introduced cranberries to starving English settlers in Massachusetts who then incorporated them into the traditional Thanksgiving feast.

Historically, cranberry beds were constructed in wetlands.  Now they are most likely found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere.  A bog is a wetland type that accumulates acidic peat.  This peat is generally a deposit of dead plant material such as moss or lichen.  When creating a cranberry bed, typically the topsoil is removed to form dykes around the bed perimeter and then filled with four to eight inches of clean sand.  The dykes allow beds to be serviced without driving on the plants during fertilization and harvest.

Cranberry vines are propagated by taking vines from an established bed and spreading the vines on the surface of the sand of the new bed.  The vines are watered during the first few weeks of planting until roots form and new shoots grow.  A common misconception about cranberry production is that the beds remain flooded throughout the year.  Actually, during the growing season, cranberry beds are not flooded, only irrigated to maintain soil moisture.  Beds are flooded in the autumn to facilitate harvest and during the winter to protect against low temperatures.  

The harvest season for cranberries usually occurs in late September or early October at which time the beds are flooded with six to eight inches of water.  Harvesters are then driven through the beds to remove the fruit from the vine.  The harvested cranberries float in the water and can then be corralled into specific areas of the bed.

About 95 percent of the harvested cranberries are processed into juice drinks, sauce or sweetened dried cranberries.  The remaining 5 percent we enjoy around this time of year — fresh with our holiday meals.  Who could imagine Thanksgiving turkey without fresh cranberry sauce?  We tweak our fresh cranberry “salsa,” by adding spring onions, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice and garlic.

The health benefits of cranberries will come as no surprise to any of you who have witnessed the cranberry marketing machine in action.  Think Ocean Spray’s cranberry juice commercial — “the Ninja fruit”, or Carrie in Sex in the City drinking Cosmopolitans.  Cranberries have extraordinary amounts of vitamin C, dietary fiber and the essential minerals, and of course are loaded with antioxidants.

At Cindy Lutini’s we use dried cranberries in our brown butter sauce with hazelnuts and fresh sage leaves – the perfect sauce over our most popular ravioli, butternut squash.  During the month of October, we assembled over 2000 butternut squash ravioli for weddings and private parties and made what felt like a ton of brown butter sauce!

We also enjoy Turkey and Cranberry Tortellini, either bathed in a light cream sauce or brown butter – substantial enough to serve as a main course.  A popular small bite item is our Cranberry and Brillat-Savarin Puff Pastry.  We think it pairs very nicely with the 2007 Ponzi Pinot Gris or 2002 Bert Simon Serrig Wurtzberg Riesling Spatlese as suggested by two of our wine distributor experts and available at our shop. So however you choose to consume them, cranberries are an easy way to add a healthy dash of color and flavor to everyday meals.