Thanksgiving and Christmas are good times for cranberries. Two of the most recognized holiday seasons in Canada and the US, and the red berries have become nothing short of a tradition to both of them. Truth is cranberries are so popular during this time of year that it's almost sacrilegious not to have it on the dinner table. Needless to say, the roots of the cranberry shrub goes deep into the heart of the American thanksgiving culture.

Cranberries are a group of trailing vines or dwarf evergreen shrubs found throughout the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The shrubs thrive in acidic bogs, growing from 5 to 20 cm in height. Its vines are slender with wiry stems, but not woody, and distinguished by small evergreen leaves. Baby cranberries are white; later they turn a deep red color when fully grown. The sight of a few dozen red cranberries all bunched up amongst the green shrubbery elicits a feeling as sweet as the cranberries themselves.

Cranberries around the world

During Christmas and Thanksgiving, cranberry easily tops the list of favorite fruit used in dinner recipes. In fact the cranberry is a major commercial crop in many US states, including Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Maine—Wisconsin as the biggest supplier of cranberries, with almost half of the US annual production coming from the state. Massachusetts ranks as the second largest supplier, coming up with over one-third of total US production.

The Canadian provinces of Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia are likewise considerable suppliers of all things cranberry: cranberry juices, cranberry sauces, cranberry-infused delicacies, fresh cranberries, etc. Small cranberry production fields can be found in the Baltic States, in southern Chile, and in Eastern Europe.

Cranberries are harvested in Autumn when the berry takes on its distinctive red color. Often this is in late September, but sometimes extends all the way to October when yields are high. For this the beds are completely flooded with water, the vines submerged 6 to 8 inches below the surface. Afterwards a harvester is drawn across the bed so the berries are detached from the vines as neatly as possible. The yields float to the surface, corralled to one side and pumped out to be carried off to the receiving stations. All the cranberries are cleaned, processed and sorted in these stations.

2005 saw the introduction of a new type of harvester: the Ruby Slipper. It's got fewer moving parts than the standard harvester, though its future in the industry is yet to be seen.

Nutritional values of raw cranberries

Nutrient	Value per 100 grams
Fiber, total dietary	4.6 g
Energy	46 kcal
Sugars, total	4.04 g
Magnesium, Mg	6 mg
Calcium, Ca	8 mg
Potassium, K	85 mg
Phosphorus, P	13 mg
Sodium, Na	2 mg
Vitamin A, IU	60 IU
Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid	13.3 mg
Carotene, beta	36 mcg
Lutein + zeaxanthin	91 mcg

In 1959, secretary Arthur S. Flemming started the aminotriazole scare when he announced that some of the crop produce were tested positive for herbicide aminotriazole. The cranberry market collapsed, of course, and growers lost millions of dollars as products went unsold. This taught them a valuable lesson: restrict the use of herbicides and establish year round markets for cranberries, not just Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays. Decades later, the biggest US handlers of fruit products are growers of cranberries.

Today cranberries are something special. In fact, any place with the lingering smell of a slice of warm roast turkey dipped in sweet and flavorful cranberry sauce—on a Christmas eve or regular weekend—is a place you could call home.