Cranberry sauce, either jellied or crushed whole berry variation, is a favored garnish of Thanksgiving feasts and holiday dinners dating back centuries.
Early Native Americans referred to these tart, red berries as “imbi,” meaning “bitter berry,” while valuing them for their merits as a food garnish to balance strong-tasting game meat. They are a good source of vitamin C and favored for their healthy diuretic properties, as well as the bonus benefit of yesteryear that the red skin and juice can be used as a red dye.
The pilgrims found adding sugar to the crushed berries provided an even greater range of possibilities for baking, cooking and consuming.
The heavily wooded farm at the end of our family farm road in San Pierre is the address of my oldest brother Tom and his late wife Linda, who hosted many family holiday dinners at their home during the past three decades.
They purchased the 40-acre farm in November 1989 during the auction and estate sale of the late Mildred D. Evans, widow of Chicago attorney Donald L. Evans. Born Aug. 15, 1900, as Mildred James, the couple married in Chicago in June 1924. With their primary residence being in Chicago, Donald purchased the 40-acre farm in San Pierre as a “weekend getaway,” with the property consisting of a small cottage, underground root cellar, stable and several outlying buildings, the latter used for hunting and for Donald’s favorite hobby, inviting weekend guests to enjoy “skeet” or “shooting clay pigeons.”
By the time of Donald’s death in September 1973, the childless couple had sold their Chicago home and retired to their weekend farm property.
It was after a fall in her home that “Mrs. Evans” (as we always referred to her) was admitted to our small town’s Little Company of Mary Hospital and Care Facility in San Pierre. Shortly after, her home and property were liquidated and sold at auction in November 1989 by her estate’s bank conservator, our neighbor Betty Kalinke, the latter who died just a year ago at age 88, as I chronicled in a previous column.
Mrs. Evans, at age 91, died Aug. 31, 1991, and was buried near her husband at Mount Hope Cemetery in Chicago.
It was when my brother and his wife Linda were purchasing the Evans property that they were reminded by our neighbor Ed “Snuffy” Wolski that the back acreage of that property, where the pond is located, was a “cranberry bog” with a clear “built-up” dirt wall ridge still apparent as evidence that water collected to create ideal swampy growing terrain for cranberries.
Linda Potempa, the late sister-in-law of columnist Phil Potempa, photographed the pond and surrounding bog of her favorite walking trail on April 2, 2015. Linda Potempa died at age 69 on July 28, 2023. (Photo by Linda Potempa)
(The origin of the nickname for neighbor “Snuffy” was shared in my 2007 cookbook from a reprinted 2003 column, along with his fondness for chewing tobacco and a resemblance to a Sunday newspaper cartoon character of the same name.)
The name “cranberry” was originally the term “craneberry,” since sandhill cranes favored wading through the same swamps and bogs that are home to the long, floating cranberry vines.
The remnants of my brother’s century-old cranberry bog is even older than today’s cranberry claim-to-fame company Ocean Spray, now based in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. The company started in 1930 as a collaboration of farmers Marcus Urann, John Makepeace and Elizabeth Lee, who banded together to ensure better prices from the cannery manufacturers of commercially canned cranberry sauce, and later in 1933, the advent of bottled cranberry juice.
Within a decade, more farmers, including those in Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington, began joining the agriculture cooperative and, in 1957, the National Cranberry Association, established in 1946, rebranded as “Ocean Spray” after purchasing the name logo from an existing canned fish company in Washington. Today, more than 700 farmers are part of the Ocean Spray initiative.
Cranberries earned added consumer popularity in the 1920s and 1930s courtesy of Hoosier newspaper syndicate visionary Samuel McClure, who immigrated from Ireland to Indiana and graduated from “Valparaiso City Public Grade School” (now Valparaiso High School) in 1873. He went on to found McClure’s Magazine in 1893 and, before that, the McClure’s Newspaper Syndicate in 1884, the latter of which is credited as “the first U.S. newspaper syndicate.”
Among McClure’s favorite syndicated features was a distributed comic and story strip called “Uncle Wiggily Longears,” about a fancy rabbit lame from rheumatism (often depicted using a crutch or cane) who loved eating cranberries from a nearby bog, as written and created by author Howard R. Garis and illustrated by Chicago artist Lansing Campbell. Published in hundreds of newspapers, cranberries soon became a delicious “must-have” for menus around the time of the Great Depression.
In a November 1928 “Uncle Wiggily” installment I read in a newspaper clipping from The Indianapolis News archive, Uncle Wiggily tells his “muskrat lady housekeeper” he is going to find cranberries in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner:
“We will want some cranberries for pies, tarts, as well as some for sauce to eat with roast carrots,” Uncle Wiggily explains.
“The bog is a low, swampy place where rain collects, even where it is sandy. Cranberries grow best in bogs, you know, and in the winter, the bog must be covered with water so the bushes will not catch cold and freeze. Even when covered with a coating of ice, the cranberry bushes will live until summer sun comes again.”
The distinct taste of tart dried cranberries is balanced by brown sugar, butter and white chocolate for a delicious, easy blended flavor oatmeal cookie recipe developed by the test kitchens at Ocean Spray. (Photo courtesy of Ocean Spray)
Today’s recipe, courtesy of Ocean Spray, combines dried cranberries with oatmeal, brown sugar, flour and butter to create a scrumptious cookie dough that has a hint of chocolate chunks to balance the berry flavor.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a radio host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Cranberry Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies
Makes 24 cookies
2/3 cup softened butter or margarine
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 ounces dried cranberries
2/3 cup white or semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Using an electric mixer, beat butter or margarine and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well.
Combine oats, flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate mixing bowl.
Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and chocolate chunks.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.
