A Meaty, Boozy Father's Day
Polynesian Cocktail Party
10 Spicy Snacks
Party Food from the Corner Store
How to Make Nut Milk
Sausage Recipes of the Month
One hallmark of the Age of Foodism is to take unassuming, often relentlessly processed foods and transform them, She’s All That–style, into purer, more elevated versions of their former selves. It’s a drama that plays out particularly well (as most dramas do) on Thanksgiving, when a culturally mandated appreciation for food in its most natural form runs counter to the urge to stick marshmallows in sweet potatoes or dump a can of fried onions onto the green bean casserole. But nowhere is the disconnect between tradition and gastronomic correctness more apparent than in a dish—er, can—of cranberry sauce.
Recent years have been kind to cranberry sauce, giving us recipe after recipe after recipe for concoctions tricked out not only with real, whole cranberries but also with nice things like pumpkin seeds, fennel, and chipotles. Pretty much everyone hails this development, which has turned cranberry sauce into the Thanksgiving table’s Most Likely to Succeed.
I’m happy that the sour little fruit is getting its due, but I have a confession to make: I love the crappy Ocean Spray stuff that slides out of its can with that revolting sucking sound, settles moistly on a plate, and all but begs to be sliced along its convenient indentations.
I love how perfectly it matches the image on its label: gelatinous ruby slices more closely resembling beets, Jell-O, or surgical specimens than anything even distantly related to fruit. I love how it glides down the throat unencumbered, the ideal chaser for more textured, less flagrantly man-made foods. I love how divisive it is, how it invites acolytes to roll in the gutter while everyone else watches with dubiousness or disgust. And I love how it can’t be anything more than it is, despite the best efforts of magazine test kitchens and Sandra Lee. It’s just a cylinder of smooth, featureless goo, a blank canvas for projections of fear and loathing or undying affection.
And against my better instincts (and everything the sustainable food movement has drilled into me), I love the taste, that unforgiving sweetness that grudgingly acknowledges the tartness of its namesake and provides such satisfyingly trashy contrast to the more pedigreed dishes crowding the table. Along with marshmallow-impregnated sweet potatoes, canned cranberry sauce is the perfect bridge between dinner and dessert. A questionable idea? Yes. An aberration of good taste? Certainly. A reason to be thankful? You bet.
Image source: Flickr member Ja-nelle under Creative Commons
Jellied cranberry sauce. I eat it once a year, and I love it. I hate turkey, but can choke down a slice or two, so long as my sweet squishy cranberry sauce is right there. Somehow the turkey isn't so bad. Once a year :)
I include the canned cranberry sauce on our Thanksgiving menu, but I do pretty it up by slicing it, and then using a fluted biscuit cutter to trim off the can ridges.
I love it too. I've made the recipes with fresh cranberries and orange zest, heard the oohs and aahs from my guests, but there is nothing that brings back the memories of childhood Thanksgivings like the good old Oceanspray jellied stuff!!
Me too! (@onedog..hehe). But no really... This is the best way to eat cranberries. Just never drink milk afterward. Eeeeew!
I love this cranberry sauce and have had it every year for Thanksgiving since I was a kid and I'm in my late 30's now! :) I also love the "revolting" suction sound too! LOL
I LOVE it, too (well, the whole berry kind)! And am unashamed by that fact. I've tried to like the homemade kind. Mixed in oranges, pecans and God-knows-what-else, to no avail.
As for sweet potatoes: melt lots of real butter, spices and Grade-B maple syrup. Add that to mashed, roasted (never BOILED!) sweet potatoes.
I used to buy Ocean Spray whole berry cranberry sauce but stopped doing so after its taste changed, not for the better. I looked at the label and saw that they were now making it with high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. HFCS tastes metallic and overly sweet to me. So now I make my own with fresh cranberries, sugar, water, and a splash of Cointreau.
Agreed--while I make my own these days (blueberry+cranberry mixed FTW!)--the canned stuff has a special place in my heart. And let's face it, no one, I repeat NO ONE wants "pumpkin seeds, fennel, and chipotles" in cranberry sauce. Ugh! Why ruin something so simple? Back away from the spice cabinet, Sandra Lee!
There was a period of 15 years or so that I virtually didn't cook- during that time something changed about the cranberries; the sauce just doesn't set up like it used to; last year I even added gelatin, though evidently not enough. This is OK, but the quality of the berries has gone down as much as the price went up; lucky if I keep half of what I buy, even at $3 a bag.
I love the canned cylinder as well as homemade varieties, but I must point out that your reverse-snobbery (as well as the regular old snobbery of cranberry cylinder-haters) is misplaced: If you take whole fresh cranberries and cook them in a pot with a little sugar and then strain out the skins, you will get a result EXACTLY like the canned product. It tastes the same, it sets up the same, it IS...+READ
I love the canned cylinder as well as homemade varieties, but I must point out that your reverse-snobbery (as well as the regular old snobbery of cranberry cylinder-haters) is misplaced: If you take whole fresh cranberries and cook them in a pot with a little sugar and then strain out the skins, you will get a result EXACTLY like the canned product. It tastes the same, it sets up the same, it IS the same. The shape, of course, will be up to you.-COLLAPSE
I like the whole-berry style and kick it up a notch by mixing fresh orange juice with it. My guests always ask for the recipe thinking I've made it from scratch.
I've always' loved this Cranberry Sauce. The real stuff just isn't the same with those Cranberry Skins ... Taste good as a late night snack too ;-) Mmmm
I agree--it ain't Thanksgiving until a chilled can cranberry sauce makes its way to that fine china serving plate...sliced and glistening in all its cranberryness.