Episode 44: Merciless Mastodons & Slippery Slopes- Cranberry
Hello and welcome back to Rooted! This week we are digging into a thanksgiving staple here in the US- Cranberry!
Cranberry, or Vaccinium macrocarpon, is a fruiting evergreen vine that can be found growing in acidic bogs across the northern hemisphere. It’s known for it’s short stature, spindly woody vines and extremely distinct pink flowers with reflexed petals- meaning they are bent outward away from the center- giving them an almost crane head-like appearance, which is partly why early colonizers called them “Cranberries!\”
Cranberries, especially the ones we typically think of, are exclusively cultivated and farmed in North America, with 97% of the world supply coming from the United States, Canada, and chile. They like moist, acidic soil, and need cooler temps to thrive.
They produce berries that start green, then turn white, followed by a dark red when fully ripe. The berries tend to be quite tart, and are typically harvested after the first frost, which is thought to make them just a little sweeter.
Most cranberries are harvested while they are still white to make juice, but the rest are typically harvested to be dried, with only 5% of cranberries being kept whole and sold directly to consumers.
This is because traditional farming methods result in damage to the fruit, so all fruit being sold whole has to be hand picked to avoid bruising.
While most people assume that cranberries stay submerged in water, the reality is that most cranberries are grown in special beds built on a shallow water table, that is flooded to irrigate the berries during growing season, then again in the fall to harvest the berries, which float to the top due to the air-filled chambers inside the fruit that house their tiny seeds..once at the surface, the berries are scooped up in big nets with a little help from bog workers…and while I always thought being a cranberry bog worker sounded fun, it turns out that you have to be SUPER okay with spiders- wolf spiders to be exact- because when they flood the bogs, the wolf spiders who were munching on mites and other nasties all season lose their homes, and immediately look for something tall to climb to get out of the water….and most the time, the tallest thing in the bog is a person…scary stuff
If you thought wolf spiders would be the scariest beasts we talked about today, I have some kinda bad news, as today’s folktale has some pretty harrowing hairy beasts
According to the Lenni Lenape (Len-na Len-NAW-pay) people who lived in what is now Delaware through New Jersey, Cranberries are a symbol of peace, with a rather violent and complicated past. According to their legend, before there were humans, there were giant mastodons- huge wooly-mammoth like creatures- who considered themselves the king of beasts and really walked the earth like they owned the place, much to the chagrin of all the other animals. Sick of them all not seeing their greatness, the mastodons decided to band together to demand the respect they felt they deserved. After many dark days of exceptional violence, the great spirit knew they had to act. They shot down the mastodons with lighting bolts, and left massive bloody craters in their path. Once the war was over, the great spirit filled these channels with evergreen vines to help the earth heal, and these vines created blood red berries as a reminder of the mastodons, and to serve as a symbol of peace.
This symbol of peace went on to become an important source of food and medicine for the Lenni Lenape (Len-na Len-NAW-pay) and other indigenous people, who ate them fresh and dried in dishes like soccotash- a soup made with corn, beans, and dried cranberries that could be made pretty much year round if needed due to all the ingredients long storage life and ability to hold on to nutrients for long periods of time. Cranberries were also commonly eaten in a dish called pemmican, which is kind of the equivalent of an early cliff bar- Pemmican are small cakes made of dried cranberries, venison, and fat drippings, which kept for a long time, provided a lot of nutrient dense calories, and could easily be taken from place to place, which was important given how frequently the Lenni Lenape and other groups in this region moved.
Now I know what you’re thinking- those dishes are a pretty far cry from the can shaped jelly that makes its way to a lot of our tables today- and you’re totally right…As a nation, we really didn’t celebrate thanksgiving until after the civil war, when President Lincoln recognized the need to unify the nation, and felt that a holiday celebrating the “roots of america” would be the perfect way to do just that. So, he crafted a narrative around two groups of people putting their differences aside to come together and celebrate the beautiful land they lived on, and the abundance we can all achieve when we work together.. So that’s really where the sugar coating started, and then that same sweetness wormed its way into our diets, ultimately resulting in a lot of the super sweet yams, cranberries, and desserts on our tables today.
Jellied cranberry first started popping up at thanksgiving feasts in 1796, once sugar cane had found its way to north america, and people had figured out that in order to get plants to grow in areas they aren’t native to, you have to replicate the environment they are from. In a cookbook from that time, one recipe stood out as a favorite for the new fangled americanized feasts- cranberry sauce with onion, which called for folks to boil the cranberries and sugar cane until softened, and then cook in onions.
From there, folks experimented with various different fruits and ingredients, until we got something that resembled the homemade cranberry sauce of today. Then Ocean Spray- probably the best known cranberry brand, developed and patented the water-based harvesting method we all know of today, which saved a bunch of man hours, but really damaged the fruit…so, they decided to mass market a pre-made canned sauce to save folks some time, and cover up for their unsightly cranberries.
Now, if you tend to think of cranberries as more of a UTI miracle cure, and less of a fancy feast food, you definitely aren’t alone. Cranberries have long been touted as a powerful anti-microbial and wound-healing plant, used as a poultice and even as a cure for blood poisoning or to treat hepatitis when drunk as a tea or applied topically. While we now know this is primarily because if the tannins, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, antioxidants and flavonoids, which help to promote heart health, fight infection, decrease inflammation, and keep free radicals in check.
When it comes to treating UTIs, it's the Proanthocyanidins that are really putting in the work. These specific tannins get to work in your urinary tract, preventing the e.coli from latching onto your cells by basically turning the whole system into a slip n slide, helping you to pee out the bacteria before it gets a chance to really mess you up….and if you’re wondering if I put that exact method of action description in my paper on these bad boys at Cornell, I sure did…If I am one thing, it is both a menace and a delight to higher education, okay?
This method of action is also partially why it is SO important when treating a UTI to be sure you are getting 100% cranberry juice, and not juice cocktail, as you need a lot of the active ingredient to be effective, and added sugar helps to feed the bacteria, given it some extra strength and sticking power- something NO one wants in a UTI situation.
Whether you’re lucky enough to haunt a bog, or just come across these guys in your holiday spreads, I hope you take a little time to be extra thankful for all the interesting and unique things these tart little fruits bring to the table.
Curious about how the heck cranberries made their way to your holiday feast AND medicine cabinet? We’ve got answers to those, and other questions you didn’t even know you had on this week’s episode. We’ll dive into massive mastodon dictatorships, ancient cliff bars, and so much more! Whether you know cranberries as a fruit, medicine, or music group, you’ll want to tune in.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry
