When I saw the cover of 101 All-Time Favorite Cranberry Recipes (Ocean Spray, undated, but looks 1970s-ish), I kind of loved the little caricatures.
I especially like the way the pilgrim men kind of look like they have peg legs. It makes me think of Odie in Garfield's Halloween Adventure. However, seeing the Native Americans also made me nervous. A cook booklet from the 1970s with caricatures of people can be ... uh ... less than sensitive. (And really, any idealized depiction of America's past is sus at best.) But I charged ahead anyway because I was hoping to see some weird cranberry recipes.
And I was of course immediately greeted by another stereotypical caricature, one of the characters apparently saying "Heap good." Yikes. And while pakimintzen is, so far as I can tell, an actual Lenape word for "cranberry eater" (as the booklet itself states), the way the picture is drawn seems to suggest cannibalism. (The dish on offer should be pakihm-- cranberries! NOT cranberry eaters!) So ... double yikes? At least?
Not content with just being racist against Native Americans, the booklet also offers the cringeworthy Oriental Cranberry Salad.
The salad itself, I'm kind of on the fence about. Cranberry orange relish/ gelatin with crystallized ginger in it sounds pretty amazing, but I can see the water chestnuts either making it (with their crunch) or breaking it (with their sometimes weird, metallic flavor). The picture, though-- NO! Bad Ocean Spray!
Maybe we'd be happier just moving on from the caricatures... Let's check out a few of the more unusual uses of cranberries-- maybe ways they can help replace the typically non-cranberry components of a Thanksgiving dinner. If your family is not the turkey type, you could make Cranburgers the main course.
The cow looks pretty unimpressed by the suggestion to make meatloaf-ish burgers and top them with a "Cranburger Sauce" consisting of canned cranberry sauce blended with A-1, oil, and brown sugar, but dinner guests who are tired of bone-dry turkey breast might be more excited.
If you're tired of pumpkin pie, maybe make some Cranberry Doughnut Puffs for dessert.
They're pretty easy since they use refrigerated biscuit dough as the doughnut, and I could see this being a fun end-of-the-meal project, especially back in the fondue era, with everybody frying their own little puffs in an electric skillet of hot oil in the middle of the table, then rolling their treats in cinnamon sugar. (And then the hosts might be tempted to burn the house down and attempt to get the insurance money after the end of the meal because that could be easier than cleaning up afterward!)
And finally, maybe you're hosting a HUGE gathering and want a beverage to replace the wine. (Maybe because it will be cheaper, and/or maybe because it could help cut down on the number of times family members lose their tempers and fling silverware at each other.) That's when Cranberry Nog comes to the rescue.
Simply mix cranberry juice with water plus apricot nectar or prune juice and MORE THAN TWO DOZEN EGGS! This should be enough to serve at least 100 (or quite possibly more, given that main components are prune juice and raw eggs).
Still less cringeworthy than some of those caricatures, though, so I guess that's something.... Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!
Over the years, I've learned that any drink involving the word "nog" should be avoided like the plague. That theory has served me well.
ReplyDeleteThey do tend to be gloopy at best, and potential danger at worst if the eggs are not cooked or pasteurized.
DeleteI thought the cranburgers would have cranberries in the meat. Now I think the Ocean Spray people were cowards.
ReplyDelete