Everyone has a Great Aunt Tootie they haul out for the holidays. She sits in the corner calling everyone by the wrong name and talking about the turkey she had back in ’29 that was really made out of dirt. Someone thought it was a great idea to bring her, but now nobody knows what to do with her. She sits at the holiday table and you wonder how she’s related to you, and why she only comes out every ten months or so. At odd intervals, she may laugh loudly or simply stare at the table, eyes glazing over. But she’s not crazy; she’s just communing with her kindred spirits—the cranberries.
If you’re going to have your spotlight dance only twice a year, it may as well be during the two biggest feasts of Eating Season: Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sad thing is, most people put cranberries on their holiday table only because they think they have to: It’s their duty, just like picking up Aunt Tootie at the home. True, there are fans of the cran, those who happily pass the bowl after taking a big spoonful of gelatinous crimson tartness. But the majority of people won’t be fighting for the cranberry leftovers or making a turkey and cranberry sandwich the next day. And it’s a shame, because two appearances a year are not enough for the wonderful cranberry. Its ability to help you stave off a nasty urinary tract infection alone makes it worthy of yearlong celebration!
Wisconsin is known for cheese and beer. Most people miss the fact that Wisconsin produces more than half of the country’s cranberry crop. Last year’s harvest yielded more than three million barrels of fruit. To know the true greatness of the berry, you should start in a bog.
Cranberries are native to North America. American Indians traditionally ate them fresh, mashed, and ground with cornmeal into breads. Cranberry poultices were used to draw poisons from arrow wounds, and juices were used to dye cloth a vibrant red. Different tribes had different names for the versatile berry, but it was the Pilgrims who first likened the blossom to a crane, referring to them as “crane berries.”
Thanks to the glaciers of the Ice Age, the northern part of the U.S. is ideal for growing the cranberry. The cranberry is a wetland fruit, growing on trailing vines that thrive in the natural bogs that evolved from deposits left by glaciers. These wetlands are surrounded by dazzling support lands that, through a maze of ditches, dikes, dams, and reservoirs, ensure an adequate water supply and provide a natural refuge for wildlife such as bald eagles, sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, ospreys, and wolves.
The season begins in winter, when the farmers flood the bogs—which freeze and insulate the vines. The bogs drain with the spring thaw, the vines blossom, and by September the tiny green nodes have become robust red cranberries. This is when the magic happens. Two methods are used to gather the berries, depending on their destiny. Wet-harvested berries are usually processed, and dry-harvested berries are used as fresh fruit. Both methods are based on two of the coolest properties of cranberries: 1) they float, and 2) they bounce.
The dry harvest involves mechanical pickers that comb through the vines. The harvested berries are then bagged from a conveyor belt and sent to receiving stations, where they’re screened and graded on color and bounce. (Soft berries don’t.) The method was derived from an old practice of rolling a load of berries down a flight of stairs. The ripe ones would bounce down; the duds would sit listless.
The wet harvest is something to behold. The bogs are flooded and the berries loosened from the vines. As they float on the surface, they are gently corralled, almost herded toward the conveyor belt and into waiting trucks. On an early October afternoon, with a crisp, blue sky overhead, the pools look like a sea of floating fire.
Where would your Cosmopolitan be without cranberry juice? Certainly not in the pink. The tart little berry contains antioxidants that are believed to combat heart disease, cancer, and certain bacterial infections. The berries can be frozen or dried, and they keep for up to a year. Try using them as “rocks” in your Stoli Cranberi. Other ways to celebrate cranberries throughout the year: Grab a tantalizing white chocolate and cranberry muffin at Taste of Scandinavia, or indulge in Regi’s Cranberry jams, which often incorporate interesting twists like jalapeños. Or why not just play around with them? Sautéed, glazed, candied, dried, tossed in cakes or muffins, added to ciders, stuffed in a chicken… Go crazy.
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