from 'Seasonal Surprises', compiled by The Junior League of the Lehigh Valley
CAN YOU BELIEVE that Thanksgiving is next week? I can’t, not least because if Thanksgiving is next week, Christmas is less than six weeks away, and that’s terrifying. But rather than panic, I’m going to drown my sorrows in cookbooks––specifically, my old standbys, the Ladies’ Auxiliary collection that seems to be breeding like rabbits (or maybe turkeys) on my bookshelves. This week, in preparation for, uh, next week, it’s time to consider the cranberry.
I love cranberries, and cranberry sauce, as much as anything on the Thanksgiving table. So I was a little surprised, maybe even shocked, when my trove of cookbooks (and I have a lot of these, mind you) yielded only one recipe for the classic turkey accompaniment.
From 'Dine with Forks', compiled by the Forks of the Delaware Garden Club, 1990
Instead, the tart little jewels are used in an an occasional jam or butter, and astonishing number of desserts, cakes and breads (the latter of those was a particular childhood favorite of mine, thanks to a wonderful kids’ book, Cranberry Thanksgiving, which includes a perfectly good recipe) and jello molds (an entire category of recipes that, sorry, I just can’t endorse; feel free to try to change my mind).
from 'Connecticut Cooks II', the CT Division of the American Cancer Society, 1985
Most of those molds (which tend to call themselves “salads,” an instance of misplaced optimism) are fruit-based: pineapple is a popular ingredient. One contained cashews, which I love (not enough to actually make the recipe, though). But one version, which I found in multiple cookbooks, was a stunner, not in the good way.
From The Junior Saturday Club's 'Philadelphia Main Line Classics', 1982
Tuna? Cranberries? Together? No.
I decided that maybe the absence of sauce recipes was a tacit endorsement of my own low-effort approach to this favorite condiment. I do not buy it in cans, don’t buy the jellied stuff, either, though I know some love it. I make my cranberry sauce from scratch, because it’s the easiest thing I do for the whole Thanksgiving meal. 
My recipe of choice is the one on the Ocean Spray bag, but I add some orange zest, a couple of cloves and a cinnamon stick. The one sauce recipe I found, from the Junior League of Greensboro, North Carolina’s 1978 Out of Our League compendium, was a gussied-up version of that humble recipe, quite close to my own. How about you? Will there be cranberries on your table? (Sister Marion already described hers.) Have you ever made a disastrous cranberry surprise? C’mon, you can tell your sisters…
Related posts:
- ‘Yams’ With a Side of Sisterhood WITH THE BEGINNING of the winter holiday juggernaut breathing down...
First time here? Here's the idea:
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
How. could anyone. ever. think. that cranberries and tuna would taste good together. Love those old cookbooks!!
My cranberry sauce is very similar to yours (Ocean Spray plus) but I add a tsp. (tablespoon?) of Grand Marnier. :)
Mine is like basically like yours, only for each bag of cranberries I add 3 cloves, 3 whole allspice, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 2 or 3 whole star anise with the water and sugar (1:1) and let it simmer for a bit before putting in the cranberries. Zest of 2-3 tangerines goes in at the end. I’m a fiend for this stuff and beg you to consider that leftovers are awesome on pancakes, waffles, or bagel with cream cheese. Or, for true decadence, on top of french toast made with panettone…or a panettone bread pudding…
Paige, I love any cranberry talk that includes the words orange, clove, and cinnamon. At the Thanksgiving table, my family heads first for two old crystal bowls: one hot cranberry sauce, one cold cranberry relish. The relish is my favorite and couldn’t be simpler: fresh cranberries, dried cherries, orange zest, balsamic vinegar and dash of cinnamon. Chop all in food processor, eat for a week. Gets stronger day by day, and makes the finest condiment a turkey & Swiss sandwich has known.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Paige. How I love your Ladies’ Auxiliary posts!
Cranberry-Orange Relish
by John Engels
A pound of ripe cranberries, for two days
macerate in a dark rum, then do not
treat them gently, but bruise,
mash, pulp, squash
with a wooden pestle
to an abundance of juices, in fact
until the juices seem on the verge
of overswelling the bowl, then drop in
two fistsful, maybe three, of fine-
chopped orange with rind, two golden
blobs of it, and crush
it in, and then add sugar, no thin
sprinkling, but a cupful dumped
and awakened with a wooden spoon
to a thick suffusion, drench of sourness, bite of color,
then for two days let conjoin
the lonely taste of cranberry,
the joyous orange, the rum, in some
warm corner of the kitchen, until
the bowl faintly becomes
audible, a scarce wash of sound, a tiny
bubbling, and then
in a glass bowl set it out
and let it be eaten last, to offset
gravied breast and thigh
of the heavy fowl, liverish
stuffing, the effete
potato, lethargy of pumpkins
gone leaden in their crusts, let it be eaten
so that our hearts may be together overrun
with comparable sweetnesses,
tart gratitudes, until finally,
dawdling and groaning, we bear them
to the various hungerings
of our beds, lightened
of their desolations.
Have A wonderful Thanksgiving