Canned cranberry sauce. Really, not a sauce at all, but a wiggly jiggly glistening blob. It comes out still shaped like a can with those signature ridges, a sliceable, gelatinous traditional side dish at Thanksgiving. Forget politics, the debate across the country is canned cranberries or fresh. Though some of us prefer no cranberries at all. But for me I fall on the canned cranberry side -- there is something very nostalgic about canned cranberries. From opening the can to the distinct sound it makes sliding out and landing on a plate ... I'll be back for seconds.
10 fun facts about canned cranberry sauce:
- Ocean Spray is the largest producer of cranberry products here in the U.S. Marcus L.Urann, a lawyer who owned his own cranberry bogs, and Elizabeth Lee, a cranberry grower in New Jersey joined forces in 1912 to make the perfect recipe.
- Fresh cranberries are only available for a short time in the fall. Canning them made them available all year long.
- This canned fruit log became a Thanksgiving staple in the early 1940s.
- It takes about 200 cranberries to make one can.
- Today, Massachusetts-based company Ocean Spray is the largest producer of cranberry products here in the US.
- According to Ocean Spray, 73 percent of Americans prefer their cranberry sauce out of the can.
- Six in 10 Americans say cranberry sauce has always been a side dish on their Thanksgiving dinner table.
- 68 percent of Americans say they love the taste of cranberry sauce.
- 20 percent of cranberries in the United States are consumed the week of Thanksgiving.
- Canned or homemade, cranberries can deliver a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals.
However you slice it — you go ahead and enjoy your can of gelatinous goodness.
Want to make that gelatinous blob look fancy? Layer slices in a glass to look like a rose. Add sage for leaves.
