As our thoughts turn to Thanksgiving and the unofficial beginning of the Holidays I felt that it was time to give out a shout out to the one fruit that for me defines Thanksgiving: the humble cranberry.

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So as you sit down to offer thanks next week and pass around the cranberry sauce here are some facts that you can use to impress your family and friends about this humble little red berry.

1. They are great runners

The cranberry is an evergreen ground cover plant native to North America. Cranberries have two types of growth habits; runners (rhizomes) which trail on the ground and spread the plant as long as two feet in one season and uprights which are born on the runners in the second and third year and bear the flowers and fruit. The goal is to get the numerous runners to spread quickly in the first two years to cover the ground, and then to produce strong uprights (up to 200 per sq. foot) to produce flowers and fruit. Cranberries take 16 months to mature which means at any given time a cranberry vine is nurturing both older fruits and their younger siblings.

2. They do not grow in water

Cranberries do not grow in water despite popular belief, they are grown in bogs which are then flooded, causing the fruits to float. Actually only ripe cranberries float and if they are good they will also bounce. The reason cranberries bounce is they contain small pockets of air, which in turn is what also causes them to float. This in turn gave rise to a name that was popular in olden times when cranberries were often referred to as bounce-berries.

3. They make for some great hard cider

There are several New England brews that feature the cranberry but a local cider producer, North Country Hard Cider, which is based in Rollinsford, NH has taken the humble apple, mixed in some cranberry juice and elevated these humble fruits to a whole 'nother level by creating the: Cranbarrel cider.

All the cider produced by North Country Hard Cider contains no additives or preservatives and feature locally sourced fruit. The cranberries used in Cranbarel were sourced and collected locally from Massachusetts and juiced on the Giles Family Farm which is located in Alfred, Maine before being blended with locally sourced apples to produce a one of a kind cider that offers a deliciously tart but naturally sweet taste as it hits the palette.

You can taste Cranbarrel for yourself at the companies tasting room which can be found at 3 Front street, Rollinsford, NH. For more details and opening times please click HERE.

4. They have something in common with blueberries and grapes

Cranberries are one of only three native North American fruits that are still cultivated today. The other two in case you are wondering are blueberries and concord grapes. The native North Americans used cranberries for a variety of things: Native Americans pounded cranberries into a paste and mixed with dried meat, and called this mixture 'pemmican.' , as a poultice for healing wounds, and a dye.

5. It is the state fruit in Wisconsin

While Massachusetts produces a lot of cranberries and, since 1994, the cranberry has been the official berry of the state. When it comes to cranberry production the state that wins out is Wisconsin. Yep, the cheesehead state produces not only the Greenbay Packers, but also the largest amount of cranberries in the nation, which is why in 2003, it adopted the cranberry as it's official state fruit.

6. It had a different name

The cranberry was once known as the crane-berry on account of the fact that the flower and stem of the cranberry resembles a crane. Over time the crane became cran and now we have the popular name cranberry. In New England they were also known as bear-berries, simply because they were eaten by bears.

7. Cranberry sauce was invented in 1917

Elizabeth Lee, is generally credited with being the first person to make and market cranberry sauce. In 1917 she boiled some bruised, un-salable berries with sugar and spices to make the jelly-like product. When she first tried to market cranberry sauce, no one was interested and Shark Tank did not exist, but within a few years it caught on, and she formed her own company. Eventually she would merge with a cranberry company in Massachusetts that had also been marketing cranberry sauce, and this became the basis for what is now the largest cranberry cooperative – Ocean Spray. Amazing as it may seem about 95% of cranberries produced today are processed into juice, sauce, dried, etc, with only about 5% of the harvest being sold fresh.

8. They prevent scurvy

Cranberries were often used on long voyages as a way for American and Canadian sailors help ward off scurvy due their high vitamin C content. The sailors, however, knew that the cranberries not only prevented the disease, but also could be easily stored for long ocean voyages. American sailing ships carried water-packed cranberries much the way British ships carried limes for their sailors. Which is where the nickname "Limey" for British sailors originated by the way.

9. A lot of cranberries go into that juice

Did you know that there are 440 cranberries in a pound or that it takes 4,400 cranberries to produce just one gallon of juice? Don't feel bad, neither did I, but you do know!

10. The Beatles may have been cranberry fans

In 1980 John Lennon confirmed that he repeated the words cranberry sauce at the end of the famous Beatles song, Strawberry Fields forever. I just thought you should know this if you are a Beatles fan.

So there you have it! Some fascinating and local facts about the humble cranberry.

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