Sour and intense, this fruit-producing bush grows in lowlands and bogs across much of the north, particularly in New England, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Traditionally, the berries are harvested once ripe and used to preserve meats, much like Juniper in Northern European traditions. It’s thought that this is one of the main reasons why we eat cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving feasts. Early European settlers thought the blooms resembled the bill of a crane, giving it the name craneberry or kraanbere in Low German, a name that was shortened to Cranberry as noted by a Cape Cod missionary in 1647.
The cranberries do not have any added sugar and are not juiced before they are dried and make a very sour and astringent pink infusion.
