National Cranberry Day

On November 23rd, National Eat a Cranberry Day encourages us to take a bite of the bright red cranberry. But brace yourself! Found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs, or trailing vines, that grow up to 7 feet long and 8 inches high.

Origin: Let us first address the unusual name that is “Cranberry”, what precisely is a cran anyway? Well, it turns out the name for Cranberry was originally craneberry, derived from the German “kraanbere”. Why would a berry be named after a bird? Well, if you guessed it was because the berries were a favorite food of the bird known as the crane? You’d be wrong, but you would be on the right track. The craneberry got its name due to the English believing that the flowers and stem resembled the neck of that self-same bird. Once settlement of the Americas began the cranberry became a very popular crop, seeing export to Europe and an embrace as a traditional food for the Thanksgiving Holiday by the colonists. Today cranberry sauce is enjoyed all over the world, but nowhere near as much as it is in the USA, where it is considered an important part of every Turkey based holiday, whether that be Thanksgiving or Christmas. While most people are familiar with the traditional deep red of cranberries, white cranberries are also popular for their lighter flavor and are the result of harvesting them early before their color deepens.