Cranberries: food, medicine, symbol, and industry

Cranberry blossoms (photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Fieldwork on the first case study for this project is underway!  During June I've been in Massachusetts conducting interviews and fieldwork surrounding the cultivation, consumption, and marketing of cranberries in their native region.

Growing up in Massachusetts, cranberries meant two things to me.  One, that bizarre condiment on the Thanksgiving table, wobbling ever-so-slightly in its dish and still bearing the telltale rings of the can from whence it came.  Two, Ocean Spray cranberry juice cocktail, which despite its magenta hue turns out to contain only 27% cranberries (the rest is water and sugar, which is said to be necessary to make the juice palatable).

That is until I visited a cranberry bog on an autumn hike in Cape Cod with my family.  The soggy fields of crimson berries made an impression on my young self, forging a mental connection between the water-loving little plants and the mush alongside my turkey breast.  Not long after, I realised that I preferred my mother's from-scratch cranberry sauce to the mysterious canned stuff.  It was both an intellectual and a culinary awakening: cranberries grow in bogs; real cranberries taste tart, textural, and tremendously better than sugary canned sauce.

Fast forward a more than a few years, and I'm surprised to find myself returning from Australia to my home state to learn more about the wee tart fruit.

Massachusetts is not the only place that grows cranberries, but the fruit is indigenous here and has a long and eventful history in this state.  Local Native American tribes are known to have harvested wild cranberries, and the plant was an important part of their diet and pharmacopeia.  Cranberries were wild harvested by natives and settlers alike into the twentieth century, and Wampanoags in Martha's Vineyard continue this practice today.  As in the past, the tribe minimally manages the pockets of cranberry bogs on these 22 acres, with methods that include cutting out invasive plants in winter, managing over story growth, natural management of water runoff, and cutting channels to allow people to walk through the bogs and access the fruit.  The goal of these programs is to encourage the cranberries to grow naturally, which provides enough for the tribal members to harvest as much as they need each October.  The second Tuesday in October is Cranberry Day, and the Aquinnah Wampanoag community continues the tradition of gathering the fruit and celebrating the last harvest of the year.

Wild cranberry bogs across the street from the Lobsterville beach on Wampanoag tribal land, Aquinnah, Martha's Vineyard

The cranberry industry as a commercial enterprise was also born in Massachusetts, and the little red berry remains the largest agricultural product of the state.  Although Wisconsin has outstripped Massachusetts in cranberry production, the east coast state is really the beating heart of the industry.  This fruit is deeply enmeshed in the economy, culture, social life, and identity of southeastern Massachusetts.  Driving down the "Cranberry Highway" or wandering through Plymouth and Cape Cod, the name and image of the iconic fruit are everywhere: on churches, shops, businesses, housing developments, and menus.  In cranberry country, it's clear that the significance of the fruit extends beyond the realm of the culinary.

The industry took off in Cape Cod in the mid-1800s as a result of several factors: the declining iron industry (which not only left an economic gap in the state, but also provided land already excavated and ready for the construction of cranberry bogs), the declining fishing industry (which sent many captains ashore to their swampy land holdings, perfect for cranberry cultivation), and the ready availability and dropping prices of sugar (which made the tart berry much more palatable and, therefore, marketable).  Although the industry has weathered ups and downs as is the case with most agricultural industries, many of the original bogs are still producing today, and are often farmed by fourth or fifth generation farmers.

This bog, still operational today, is the site of Cyrus Cahoon's 1847 "early black" crop in Harwich, MA.

Organic cranberry bog and old sorting house at Cranberry Acres, a conservation project of the Vineyard Open Land Foundation, Martha's Vineyard, MA

Visiting the home of one such multi-generation grower, while overlooking her bog, I am introduced to three generations of the lineage: her mother, husband, and daughters all work or have worked on various aspects of the growing operation.  As an independent grower who is not part of a cooperative, she worries about the drop in price of cranberries on the open market as large farms in Wisconsin and Canada continue to increase production and flood the market with fruit.  Another couple who are multi-generational growers, with three sons who are all studying to join the family business, are tackling the price problem by creating their own brand of premium cranberries, sold both domestically and internationally under their own place-based label.

As I've toured Southeastern Massachusetts I've spoken with both organic and conventional growers, processors, representatives of grower cooperatives, marketing groups, researchers, historians, and conservationists.  The conversations have been information, but they've also left me with more questions to explore:

• Everyone in the cranberry industry talks about sustainability.  What does this word really mean to various stakeholders in relation to actual practices?
• What does the rise of huge corporate farms in Canada, Wisconsin, and elsewhere mean for the industry in southeastern Massachusetts, where bogs are old, small, and family-run?
• Can one make a living growing organic cranberries?  I met growers who have been doing just that for years, but they admit that it's hard work, it's a niche industry, and the profits are small.  Their work is certainly not without controversy in the industry, and many conventional growers believe that organic cranberry growing is not economically feasible.
• There are two faces to the cranberry industry: the countless small Massachusetts (and New Jersey) family farms, many growing old varieties on modest acreage in the berry's native habitat, and big, purpose-built corporate operations in Wisconsin and Canada, many of which are growing hybrid varieties with increasingly mechanised techniques.  Is a cranberry always a cranberry?  From a health standpoint, what are the consequences of eating larger berries with less skin-to-juice ratio, grown using chemical inputs in high-yield situations?  As the fruit is increasingly marketed for its health benefits, is it losing the very qualities for which it has long been celebrated?
• Why is the majority of peer-reviewed literature on cranberries focused on its health benefits, and what role should this information play in marketing?  Furthermore, what role does the folklore of cranberries as a medicinal food play in people's perceptions of the fruit?

Line drawing of cranberry plant (via Wikimedia Commons)