SC - Questions??

[Greg Lindahl]

> I am in need of some information concerning cranberries and blueberries.
>  Are they : 1) Period?
>                     2) Old world, new world or both?
>                    3) If period/ old world, where may I find the
> documentation to support this?

Cariadoc has this to say in the Miscellany. Unfortunately beside McGee
there are the words "add cite here"... ah, the cite is in the next
version that I don't have on-line yet:

McGee, Harold, _On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of
the Kitchen_ , Consumer's Union, Mt. Vernon, N.Y. 1984.

Anyway, here's Cariadoc's comment:

Blueberry and Cranberry

It appears from comments by Simmons that the term "blueberry" describes a
number of different New World species of the genus <i>Vaccinium</i>; the
bilberry, which is a member of the same genus, is Old World. The blueberry
produces "larger and better flavored berries than the European bilberry."
According to McGee, "The cultivated blueberry, a native of the American east,
north, and northwest, has been purposely bred only since about 1910 ... ."<p>

According to McGee, Cranberries are also species of <i>Vaccinium</i>. According
to several earlier sources, there is disagreement as to whether they are
members of <i>Vaccinium</i> or belong in a separate genus, <i>Oxycoccus</i>.
There are both old world and new world cranberries, but "the commercial
cranberry ... is an American native." (McGee) The word "cranberry" seems to
have come into use with the new world variant of the berry.<p>

It sounds, in both cases, as though a jelly made from modern berries would
correspond pretty closely to something that might have been eaten in Europe in
period, but individual berries would look noticably different from their old
world relatives. We do not, however, know of any period recipes using either
berry.<p>