wordaday

Falmouth Cranberry Bog
© 2001Kathy Sharp Frisbee

It’s that time of year when we put things like cranberries on our shopping list. The cranberry is:

1. A mat-forming, evergreen shrub (Vaccinium macrocarpum) of eastern North America, having pink flowers and tart, red, edible berries.
2. The berries of this plant, used in sauces, jellies, relishes, and beverages.
3. Any of several similar or related plants, especially Vaccinium oxycoccos.

Cranberries are relatives of the blueberry, and the rhododendron, and are packed with antioxidants, so the nutritionists tells us. We’ve been eating them for hundreds of years, though the name cranberry or “crane berry” is a translation of Low German Kraanbere : Kraan, crane (from Middle Low German kran; see ger-2 in Appendix I) + bere, berry. Until c. 1686 , according to the OED, cranberries were known as “marsh-whorts, fen-whorts, fen-berries, marsh-berries, moss-berries.”

The berries grow naturally in low-lying marshes, and are cultivated in carefully tended artificially created bogs, like the one above. You can even tour a working bog, if you’d like. Or you can try some of these recipes instead.

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