The Cranberry Conspiracy Pt. 4

In "recent" memory, I related my opinions of the Cranberry Conspiracy to my wife. She laughed at me, of course, they all do, and insisted how much she loved cranberries. She had just bought some cranberries and proceeded that next Thanksgiving to make a cranberry relish. She had two bites with her meal, which I had to remind her to take, and put it away in the fridge. In the interest of marital harmony, I didn't shove the moldy remains under her nose some weeks later when the fridge was cleaned out, but I did point out what I find inescapable. People hate cranberries.

In an effort to defy me, or rather my opinions of the cranberry, she went out of her way to produce a similar dish a year later, with similar results. She's since bought more cranberries, that remain in the freezer, uneaten.

I refer to this as "The Cranberry Conspiracy" in the accepted definition of a 'conspiracy' as a group of people out to commit a crime. The crime in this case is fraud. We as a people have been led to believe the cranberry is a good thing, when you could be getting significantly better health benefits from drinking water, or eating blueberries.

If not for insanely good marketing, we'd all still be looking at the things and wondering what to do with them, other than using them as cheap bearings in jury-rigged mechanical contraptions. (Something I don't think anybody's actually done, but I think if given half a chance, or the need due to decreased demand, they would try to market them with such intentions in mind.)

The Cranberry Conpiracy Pt. 3

Now, this is the point where you can make your own observations. Be the little anthropological scientist and try this little experiment. Watch the cranberry relish, sauce, or whatever is made with cranberries. You'll get a weird relative who will dig in. They'll be one of two people: either the old matronly figure who was alive during the 40s or 50s, or they'll be the weird guy who likes the color. You'll even find a few more people who actually put it on their plate.

Here's where it gets interesting. They won't eat it. It'll be the absolute last thing they eat, if they do. When everyone looks satiated, and ready to burst, throw off a casual comment about how nobody ate the cranberry sauce. Suddenly there will be flurry of activity as everyone realizes that succulently delectable construction still remains. And many with dive in with spoons blazing. And have a bite. And not have another.

A similar event several years ago, in my childhood, made me realize the simple fact, reaffirmed years later when I had a choice between the local water and cranberry juice. People hate the taste of cranberries. The amazing thing to me is how much they've been brainwashed into believing they love them. I used to stock shelves in the juice aisle. There's about a dozen different juice flavors involving cranberry. And all but two have it cut with something else. Cran-grape, cran-apple, the list goes on. Even now the amount of shelf space devoted to cranberry derivatives is mind boggling. The reason, though, is apparent. The cranberry tastes like crap, only not as good.

Cranberry Conspiracy Pt. 2

Now, as everyone knows, the second aspect of the conspiracy is even more insidious. They make you think you actually like cranberries.

I think this is where it gets considerably more dastardly. As indicated in my previous post, the cranberry is a desperation fruit. If you can't get a potato to grow, or want some variety and citrus is out of the question, you try your hand at cranberries.

Around the turn of the century, not this last one, the other one, there was this HUGE bumper crop of cranberries. Farmers were up to their eyeballs in cranberries. This guy named Karl Marx had had this brilliant idea of how to deal with this situation from an economic perspective. A guy named Engle, a businessman, helped him develop it. People call what resulted communism, but it is more accurate to think of it as a commune, or as the farmers referred to it, a "cooperative". The idea was that if they "cooperated" and pooled their resources, for advertising, lobbying and research, they'd be much better off.

It started slowly, with attempts to market the cranberry as something good for you. It's not as bad as, say arsenic, but it's not exactly good for you either. It's health benefits are negligible. A myth that lasted for years indicated that it was good for urinary tract infections. That myth has held since I was a child. Succeeding research says that it can decrease bladder infections, but only as a preventive measure. Once you've got a problem, it is no better than water.

Now, this particular aspect of things takes on a life of its own at this point. During prohibition, people were doing all kinds of crazy things to get drunk. "Bathtub gin" was a common creation. The horrid taste of the stuff is what led people to try and come up with creative ways to kill the taste. This is why, to this day, nearly a third of all alcohol drinks in any bartender's guide involve cranberry juice.

You can, if you're a media historian, go back to a movie as well received as "The Thin Man" and see an example of post prohibition drink making near the beginning, as Nick Charles explains to a group of bartenders how to make a proper martini. I refer to it only as an interesting aside, as I don't recall any mention of cranberries there.

After prohibition, and the limited consumer rights protection of the era, the cranberry was able to be marketed as something other than a way to kill the taste of crappy alcohol. In those days, the likes of Betty Crocker and other recipe books for mass consumption were being developed. The cranberry cooperatives saw this as a way to market their product. Once an ingredient was in one of these books, they were sure to become part of the American Way.