Centuries before cousin Vinnie started bringing his awful Jello mold to our holiday feasts, cranberries were on the menu.

Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) are a member of the heath family—closely related to blueberries—and native to the Poconos and much of the northeast. 

The Tannersville Cranberry Bog is internationally known, but it’s just one of the cold, acidic, spongy water bodies where cranberries grow in our area.

The fruit ripens in November as the leaves of this evergreen woody vine change to purple-red.

Native wild cranberry bogs aren’t easy to find, and that’s a good thing: overpicking ripe fruit and trampling young plants are dangers to their continued existence. Water polluted by road salt and chemical runoff is a threat. So is habitat loss from encroaching nearby landowners.

Natural forces can also cause bogs to shrink, crowding out cranberries. As saplings and shrubs take root at the edges of a bog, they can slowly, over time, overtake the bog and change its chemistry, squeezing out the bog-lovers.

The first European arrivals in the United States might well have learned about cranberries from the Wampanoags or Powhatans they encountered. Indigenous Americans ate them raw and ground them together with dried meat and fat to create pemmican, a complete food that can stay edible for years. (You can find dozens of recipes online for pemmican, though many consider it an acquired taste.)

Whatever your favorite part of holiday dinners might be, spare a moment’s gratitude at the table this year for the wondrous natural world of which each of us is a part. Including cousin Vinnie!

Find out more at www.bit.ly/3T90aXX and at www.bit.ly/47HCPB8.  

Carol Hillestad writes for the Brodhead Watershed Association. The group protects water quality and quantity throughout our area. Get involved or become a member at www.brodheadwatershed.org.