Of all the books I’ve written, this one is closest to my heart, or at least my history. I grew up in cranberry country. As my dad would put it, I’m a bog-trotting swamp Yankee, which means a Yankee who grew up among the bogs and swamps of coastal southeastern Massachusetts. As a child, I skated with friends on the cranberry bogs in the winter. Our town’s street signs weren’t regulation green: they were cranberry colored, in a nod to the cranberry growers in the region. Riding my bike to town, I’d take shortcuts through the woods and along the sandy paths that ran between the square-cut bogs. It was a low-lying landscape of nineteenth-century lighthouses, tall white church steeples, the ospreys that gave Buzzard’s Bay its name, and bogs.
Nearby is Plymouth, where Native Americans introduced the Pilgrims to cranberries in the mid-1600s. Native Americans already knew about the cranberry’s versatility; by the time colonists arrived, Native Americans were eating cranberries, dyeing blankets and other fabrics with them, and using them to create a poultice for arrow wounds (believing cranberries to have healing powers). To Native Americans, cranberries were also symbolic; when tribes gathered to feast, the berries were served as a gesture of friendship and peace. Indeed, this indigenous fruit, which grows on vines and thrives in the sandy wetlands of southeastern Massachusetts was served at the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving feast with Chief Massasoit. (Cranberry sauce first made its published appearance in The Pilgrim’s Cook Book of 1663.) Various tribes ascribed different names to the berry (the Cape Cod Pequots called it ibimi or “bitter berry”), while the Pilgrims dubbed the fruit “cranberry;” because the shape of its blossom reminded them of the head and bill of a sandhill crane.
With so much history and staying power, perhaps it’s not surprising that cranberries are also incredibly good for you, rich in fiber, vitamins, and phytochemicals that act as antioxidants and may promote good health. Early on, Native Americans taught New England colonists about the health benefits of this fruit; sailors took cranberries to sea with them, packing them in wooden barrels on the whaling expeditions of the 1800s and explorations to China to get a healthy dose of vitamin C and stave off scurvy (just as the English took limes and Spanish sailors took chiles for the same reason).
When you mention cranberries today, most people think of Thanksgiving, and the glistening ruby-colored sauce that’s often served (ours always jiggled) in a cut-crystal bowl with a sterling silver spoon at Thanksgiving. And while I always look forward to the holiday and its traditional culinary trimmings, I’ve also discovered that the cranberry is a versatile and delectable ingredient. Not only that, the color is amazing: a deep, impenetrable garnet jewel that adds a majestic brushstroke of color and suggestion to many dishes. Don’t relegate cranberries to the fall harvest; serve them year-round. Throughout these pages cranberries create a startling counterpoint to other flavors (Chipotle Cranberry Cornbread), take center stage and enliven basic recipes (Cranberry Turnovers), make terrific house gifts (Cranberry Blueberry Jam) and create fantastic desserts (Drenched Cranberry Cake). You’ll find recipes using fresh or frozen as well as dried cranberries; fresh berries are available in stores throughout the fall and early winter and can be frozen for another month or so, and dried cranberries are available year-round. So serve them up, as Native Americans did, as a gesture of peace and friendship.