cranberry heritage
Australians and New Zealanders usually associate cranberries with the traditional Christmas dinner. For Americans, the cranberry plays an important role in the American way of life. It would be unthinkable for them to not serve turkey with cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.
Folk history claims the Pilgrim Fathers served cranberries at the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621, while written recipes using cranberry have been recorded as far back as 1700.
The Native American Indians used their nutritional, medicinal and decorative qualities hundreds of years earlier. What better way to survive those long, bitter cold winters hunting and fishing, than with some "pemmican", a nutritious mixture of melted fat, deer meat and cranberries. And if the warriors suffered arrow wounds, the tribal medicine man used the juice of cranberries in poultices to heal the wound. And the industrious squaws found the rich, red juice of the cranberry a perfect medium to decorate and dye their rugs, clothes and artifacts, so sought after today.
The first Dutch and German settlers called them crane berries, because they thought the vine blossom resembled the head and bill of a crane. This was shortened to cranberry, and so the present name of this unique American fruit was born.
