In Praise of the Crane Berry

All over southeastern Massachusetts, cranberries are being harvested in October.  Seas of red berries are being corraled and loaded on trucks to go to Ocean Spray.  There are actually two methods of harvesting cranberries:  the dry method and what is called wet-picking.



Cranberries grow in acid bogs.  A bog is a water-logged depression filled with sphagnum moss (peat moss).  The cranberry vine has trailing, thin, wiry stems that bear small, evergreen leaves.  The plant flowers the early part of July and they are white to light pink in color.  It's the downward, pointing, bell shaped flower that resembles the neck of a sand crane that gave the early colonists the idea to name the fruit crane berry.








Wampanoag Indians of Cape Cod were the first to realize the importance of adding cranberries to their diet,  Each year they picked them in early fall from wild plants in the bogs and marshes.  They called the berry sassamanesh and they dried them for the winter food supply.  Dried cranberries were added to dried meat and deer fat and called pemmican.  The wampanoags also used cranberries to dye fabrics and as a medicine.

In colonial New England, cranberries became a staple crop.  Cultivation soon followed and cranberry bogs were established.  Originally cranberries were picked by hand.  Then they were harvested with wooden scoops having dowel-like teeth that would comb the plants.


Last week I visited Flax Pond Cranberry Company to take photos of an antique "sorting machine".





















Flax Pond still harvest their crop using the dry-method for the "fresh" market..  They use mechanical, lawnmower-like harvesters with small metal teeth and a conveyor system. 









After visiting with the Angley's at Flax Pond, I headed over to Edaville Railroad for their Cranberry Festival.  I knew I would get great images of the wet method of harvesting... just perfect for Bhawana's theme "Round" this week.  For do they not "Round Them Up" when they harvest?





The most efficient way to harvest cranberries utilizes water.  A cranberry bog is flooded with water from a nearby reservoir or pond and then a machine with balloon tires and a churning basket (often referred to as an 'egg beater') stirs up the water and loosens the berries.  The berries float to the surface and are then corralled by using a long rubber boom and guided up a conveyer belt, which then loads a truck.










All you can see is a sea of red.








































So, the next time you are buying cranberry sauce for your Thanksgiving Dinner, remember those cranberries might have come from my town.