12 Farmville the Magazine
From the Ground Up
Cranberries a Thanksgiving favorite
Story by Dr. Cynthia Wood
A
ll over the world, food is an important part of most celebrations. What’s served may vary from country to country, but there is always something special. In Japan, KFC is the special go-to treat for Christmas, while in England it’s steamed plum pudding with hard sauce. Here, Christmas often features homemade cookies and a standing rib roast, ham or turkey. There is usually glorious excess. Thanksgiving is no different. Almost everyone serves some combination of roast turkey, gravy, stuffing (or dressing), potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green beans or Brussel sprouts, as well as pumpkin and pecan pie. Here in Virginia oysters are a frequent addition to the menu. In addition, there’s almost always cranberry sauce. It’s one of those side dishes, like olives, celery, and carrots, considered an essential part of the celebration. Even though many people don’t particularly like it, everyone serves it anyway. Cranberry sauce wasn’t part of the original co-
lonial celebration, but it’s been around for a long time. The Art of Cookery by Amelia Simmons, which was published in the late 1700s, included a recipe for the tart/sweet sauce. Sugar was expensive, and cranberries were a fragile fruit that didn’t keep well, so cranberry sauce was a luxury available to only a few consumers. By the early 1900s, however, someone had figured out a more efficient way to harvest cranberries, and commercially canned cranberry sauce was developed as a way to use damaged fruit. By the early 1940s, commercially canned cranberry sauce was available nationwide. The big question today isn’t whether to serve cranberry sauce, but how to serve it. There are several options, each with many devotees. Some purists insist that the only possible way to serve cranberry sauce is the canned, jellied form that slips so easily from the container and can be served on a bed of lettuce as a perfect ruby-colored cylinder or sliced into rounds and garnished with nuts or whatever the cook has handy. Others insist that the newer, canned chunky
version is far superior. It’s pourable, not stiff like the original, thus making it an excellent addition to post-dinner turkey and stuffing sandwiches. And then, still others claim that the best cranberry sauce is homemade — either a cooked version that resembles the chunky canned product or a coarsely ground raw version containing sugar, cranberries, and a whole orange. There are usually recipes for both of these homemade sauces found on most packages of fresh cranberries. They’re highly adaptable to most families’ preferences. When my crew gathers, we always have two cranberry sauces: the canned jellied one that some guests swear is the only one worth eating and then another homemade one containing enough Southern Comfort to make most people forget that they’re eating cranberries. It’s good on sandwiches, but also for breakfast with sausages, and even just for snacking. It’s guaranteed to induce a state of well being that no other form of cranberry sauce can duplicate. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
