Tuesday Tidbits: FROM WENCE DID THE CRANBERRY COME & “RECIPE”

Cranberry sauce from a can or made fresh? Which do you serve? I always served from a can, until my daughter started taking culinary classes in high school and asked if she could make fresh cranberry sauce. It was delicious. So when she’s around, we have fresh cranberry sauce goodness. When it’s just me cooking, I wield the can opener. It wasn’t until 1912 that we could have this commercially processed goodness, but cranberries were popular long before they were canned.

Cranberries are one of the few fruits native to North American and were a staple for the Native Americans. The Lenni-lenape called them Pakim meaning bitter berry. They were a symbol of peace and friendship. The Chippewas word for them is a’ni-bimin, the Narragansetts’ is sasemineash, and the Algonquin referred to them as atoqua. The fruit was used for a variety of things, like remedies, foods, drinks, and fabric dyes. They used them in an energy-bar type of food called pemmican.

Early American settlers called them “craneberries” because the flower resembled the head of a sand crane. It is said that the Pilgrims were given them at the first Thanksgiving. Each year, one-fifth of all harvested cranberries are eaten on Thanksgiving.

Back in the day, barrels of cranberries were kept aboard clipper ships to help prevent scurvy.

There are many references and mentions of cranberries from 1550 through the present, with cranberry dishes showing up in cookbook after cookbook. Barrels of berries and plants were shipped back to England, and cranberry dishes became as delicacy in some parts of Europe. The Harvard University commencement dinner in 1703 served cranberries.

Revolutionary War veteran Captain Henry Hall came across wild cranberries on Cape Cod and became the first person to successfully cultivate them. The commercial cultivation of these tart berries started in 1816 in the U. S.

Attorney Marcus L. Urann revolutionized the cranberry industry when he bought a cranberry bog and canned the fruit in 1912. In time, he established a cranberry cooperative that went on to be renamed Ocean Spray. By 1940, he had canned the gelatinous log of cranberry sauce we know and love today.

What is your favorite cranberry dish?

Mine is what I call Cranberry Delight. Basically, chocolate covered fresh cranberries.

They are simple to make. Wash the cranberries and allow them to dry completely. Melt any kind of candy coating chocolate. Coat a handful of cranberries at a time and put them on wax paper to cool until the chocolate hardens. My favorite is white chocolate. The tartness of the cranberry with the sweetness of the chocolate is oh so tasty. You can read my more in-depth directions and see pictures HERE. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do you prefer your cranberry sauce with or without chunks?

 

MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)
2023 SELAH Award 3rd Place in Historical Romance

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident. Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET

(Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.
Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:


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Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-cranberries-180957399/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry
https://www.cranberrycreations.com/history-of-cranberries
See it grow: CRANBERRY, by Jackie Lee, Bearport Publishing, 2016
 

Tuesday Tidbits: CRANBERRY DELIGHT

Each year I can’t wait for this time of year for many reasons. One of them is the stores have fresh cranberries to make one of my favorite treats. What are they, you ask?

Chocolate Covered Cranberries

Oh, my goodness! I can’t stop myself from shoving one after another into my mouth. I love the snap of the cranberry when I bite into it. Snap! Snap! Snap! The mix of the sweet with the tart is a wonderful combination.

As I was washing the cranberries this year, the image of the men standing in waist-high water with floating cranberries came to mind. Then I had to ask. “Why do they float cranberries?” Here is what I found.

Cranberries are ready to be harvested after the first frost, September through early November. The special beds they are grown in are flooded with water six to eight inches above the vines. A machine called a harvester is driven through the beds, careful not to damage the plants. It plucks the berries from the vines, which float to the top. Then they are corralled to a corner where they are pumped or conveyed from the beds. This is called wet-picking.

But these aren’t the fresh cranberries sold in stores this time of year. This process can bruise the fruit, so they are immediately processed or frozen.

The cranberries available in bags in stores are harvested by dry-picking, less bruising means they can be sold as fresh. This process is slower and more expensive. Only about five-to-ten percent of the US crop is dry-picked.

So the ones I use for my treat are dry-picked. They are super easy to make with only two ingredients. The hardest part is waiting for the cranberries to thoroughly dry after washing them.

Step 1: Wash cranberries

Step 2: Allow them to dry completely. If they aren’t completely dry, the chocolate turns weird and lumpy. Then it needs to be pitched and start with new chocolate. This year, I washed them and laid them out on a towel to dry completely. Then I put them in a bowl in the refrigerator overnight, because I didn’t have time to make them by then. The next morning, I laid them out on the towel again to reach room temperature and for any condensation to dry.

Step 3: Melt chocolate according to package directions. Pretty much any kind of candy coating chocolate will work.

Step 4: Coat a handful of cranberries at a time in the pot of melted chocolate and put them on wax paper to cool.

I usually use tongs to pick them out of the pot and put them on the wax paper. This year, my time was limited, so I scooped them out with a spoon and tried my best to separate them on the wax paper. Much faster. It worked well enough. They weren’t as pretty, but still oh so delicious.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

The cranberries can be coated with milk chocolate, white chocolate, or even dark chocolate. My favorite is white chocolate.

Mmm Mmm Snappy Good!

***COMING FEBRUARY 2022!***

MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident.

  Pre-Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

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