Christmas is just around the corner and for many folks, the highlight of the holiday season is getting together with family and friends at the dinner table for a big Christmas dinner. While planning the Christmas dinner, many have been surprised that a robust discussion has emerged recently in a number of major media outlets about the role of cranberries in the holiday meal.
Who knew that cranberries could be controversial? Apparently, according to some hasty research, eating cranberries in the United States has been a thing for about 200 years. A website, cranberries.org, dedicated to Massachusetts cranberries, reports, “Cultivation of the cranberry began in [the United States in] 1816…”
According to the “Cranberries.org” article, the “Wampanoag People across southeastern Massachusetts have enjoyed the annual harvest of sasumuneash – wild cranberries – for 12,000 years. … Europeans exploring and settling New England in the 16th and 17th centuries were not surprised to see sasumuneash. Many were familiar with European cranberry varieties which grew in the boggy regions of southern England and in the low-lying Netherlands. The English had many names for the fruit, but “craneberries” was the most common because many thought the flower resembled the head of a Sandhill crane.”
The University of Maine Extension Service reports, “The Cranberry (genus Vaccinium) is native to the swamps and bogs of northeastern North America. … The cranberry plant is described as a low-growing, woody perennial with small, oval leaves borne on fine, vine-like shoots. Horizontal stems, or runners, grow along the soil surface, rooting at intervals to form a dense mat.
“Its flower buds, formed on short, upright shoots, open from May or June, with the berries ripening by late September or early October … Cranberry’s two biggest pollinators: bumble bees and honeybees (cranberries rely on insect pollination because the pollen grains are too heavy to be carried around much at all by the wind.)”
According to the 1996 edition of “Cranberry Agriculture In Maine: Grower’s Guide,” “The American cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) grows wild from the mountains of Georgia to the Canadian Maritimes, and as far west as Minnesota…”
Cranberries have maintained an important role on the Christmas dinner menu in Carroll County for many years. An article on the Historical Society of Carroll County website by Mary Ann Ashcraft, “Newspapers Chronicled Christmases Past,” written on Dec. 19, 2010, reported that in 1903, “Just before Christmas, the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Carroll County held a meeting of its officers and directors which was followed by a sumptuous dinner at the Westminster Hotel, the large yellow brick building … on East Main Street between Longwell Avenue and Center Street” (Currently the large building at Lincoln Road and Main Street, across the street from Covalent, operated by Jenn Yang and Drew Cockley.)
“The menu consisted of oysters on the half-shell, stewed and fried, turkey with cranberry sauce and kraut, roast ribs of beef, ham, celery, pickles, vegetables, harlequin ice cream, mince pie, cheese, coffee and cigars.”
There is a history and tradition of harvesting cranberries near Westminster that probably dates back to the days of the native Americans who lived in the area.
There is even a nearby town named after the cranberry. According to recent research for the historical society by Doris Hull, the town of “Cranberry is a community one and a quarter miles east of Westminster along the Western Maryland Railroad. The Oct. 21, 1910, supplement to the Democratic Advocate illustrates and describes the A. S. Burkholder Distillery and General Merchandise Store, which were built there just before the end of the 19th century.”
According to the Democratic Advocate, “Burkholder’s Distillery kept two or three local men on the payroll to produce 2½ barrels of rye whiskey each day. It depended on the railroad to haul in the grain and haul out quite a bit of the whiskey to outside markets. Locals could buy half-pint bottles for 15 cents, pints for 25 cents and quarts for 40 cents.
“In addition to this, there was a grist mill named Winter’s Mill … which also offered employment. Young people enjoyed riding the train from Westminster during the winter for ice skating parties when the mill (pond) was frozen over.”
Hull reports in her research for the Historical Society of Carroll County that, “Times have changed in Cranberry. Trains don’t stop there anymore. The last bits of Cranberry Station, the loading platforms, were removed many years ago. The grist mill burned in 1910. The distillery went out of business when prohibition came in, and later that building burned down.
“The general store and bar were eventually razed in the 1970s, leaving no trace of the Cranberry of a century ago. … There are, however, a number of Carroll Countians who are proud to say their families are from Cranberry.”
In the day, the town of Cranberry was a large commercial, industrial, and mercantile center. It was also where the power plant for the Westminster Utility Company was located. And, as the name implies, cranberries were the leading agricultural product of the area. Winter’s Mill was a huge, thriving enterprise. The mill race for the old mill still exists and is used by the Westminster water treatment facility.
Cranberries and cranberry sauce are always welcome on my dinner table. Merry Christmas – pass the cranberry sauce.
Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. His Time Flies column appears every Sunday. Email him at kevindayhoff@gmail.com.
