The cranberry conundrum: sauce or jellied?

A cranberry catastrophe and surprising facts about common cranberry sauce consumption

My mother’s cranberry sauce, a modified version of the classic Ocean Spray recipe

For much of my life, I thought cranberries at Thanksgiving were enjoyed in two primary ways: as cranberry sauce and as the star ingredient in a cake-like bread. I grew up enjoying the sauce made from the recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. Years ago, recently married and eager to serve my husband and three stepchildren a fine Thanksgiving meal, I committed a serious turkey day cranberry crime.

Before I tell you about the crime, I’ll share some of my recent discoveries about cranberries and cranberry sauce. Most historians think cranberry sauce was absent from the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, MA, just a bit more than an hour’s drive away from my home. It’s not mentioned in primary sources that describe the meal and sugar was scarce at that time. An early cranberry sauce recipe appears in the 1796 edition of The Art of Cookery by Amelia Simmons. The same book also tells you how to dress a turtle, make boiled flour pudding, and bake “diet bread” (which curiously contains a pound of sugar and 9 eggs that need to be beaten for an hour).

In the US, we consume 80 million pounds of cranberries during Thanksgiving Week, and that’s 20% of the 400 million pounds we enjoy annually. Approximately 200 cranberries are used to make a can of sauce, according to Ocean Spray.  

For the first Thanksgiving with my new family, I planned a traditional menu: turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, and cranberry sauce. I suggested making the cranberry sauce from scratch and was advised by said family to buy it. And by the way, a Bon Appetit tasting panel has concurred that homemade isn’t worth the effort.  

Back to my crime. I spooned the jellied cranberry sauce out of the can and—­ horrors—stirred it up. The pretty bowl did not save the jiggly but now amorphous victim.

Totally, totally wrong. I ruined it. The proper method, I quickly learned at the dinner table that day, is to extrude the jiggly substance right out of the can and slice it like bread. Put it on a pretty plate if you must. That’s it. The cylinder and sliced pucks shall not be adulterated.

According to landmark cranberry research, 73% of Americans prefer their cranberry sauce jellied in the shape of can and 54% of Americans serve their sauce sliced along the ridges made by the can. Since then, I’ve canned the idea of making my own cranberry sauce and haven’t been bogged down trying to make the jellied sauce look less extruded.

Sources: Can and jellied slices

The penance for my crime, committed 22 years ago, has been never to speak ill of the jelly.

FYI, I still consider jellied cranberry sauce to be the equivalent of fruit slices. Then again, the sugar content of my mom’s sauce is way up there.

Fruit slices are a family birthday tradition

I would love to know what you do with cranberries for Thanksgiving and the holiday season. Do you prefer sliced or…ahem…the real stuff? Please share in the comments.

And, however you are cooking cranberries this season, I wish you a harmonious and enjoyable time around the table.