SC - Cranberries and Lingonberry Jamup (long)

[RANDALL DIAMOND]

On 10 Dec 1999 21:47
Stefan li Rous wrote:

Ras declared:
> ringofkings at mindspring.com writes:
> << I know of several
>  Scandinavian jellies and jams using lingonberry.  I get the impression
>  that they have been used for centuries from various sources. >>
>
Ras comments:
> Possibly. But this does not mean that they were exported and used by the
> major population centers of Europe during the middle ages.

Stefan goes to bat for Akim:
>Correct. I don't think he implied that. I hope you are not saying that to
>cook a particular food or use a particular ingredient in our SCA feasts
>it must have been "used by the major population centers of Europe during
>the middle ages". That would probably eliminate a lot of foods that I've
>seen cooked in the SCA. Probably even those Middle Eastern candies that
>Master Cariadoc likes to offer guests. (yum!)

>I, for one, would like to hear more about this "used for centuries
>from various sources". I seem to remember our previous disucssions
>on this berry being somewhat short on definative info and evidence,
>although I kept a number of the messages.


*Sigh*  I guess I muddled the waters a bit with my original query.  The
line of thought I was spinning was seeing if lingonberries could be tied
to a late period Viking cuisine which had been in discussion on
SCA_Cooks of late.    It seems that both of you were commenting on
period cranberry documentation.  I now see that I really need to share
what thoughts and documentation (both hard and soft) I have on the
subject of CRANBERRIES and then progress to my query on
Lingonberries.

Reviewing the past few weeks digests, I get the impression that there is a
general belief that cranberries (and by extension- cranberry sauce) are OOP.
If I am mistaken in this impression, then a lot of the following you likely
already know.   Cranberries (including lingonberries) are period dating back
to the late Roman Empire.  Cranberry SAUCE dates to the 15th and 16th
century in a direct linear spread of the process of preservation as outlined
in the manner of soft fruit marmelades.

First I will review and expand upon the botanical data I have on cranberries
and their near relatives, for the short synopsis I gave before is woefully
inadequate, being to wit:

"There are 2 native European species Vaccinium oxycoccus and Vaccinium
vitus idaea.  The American species is Vaccinium macrocarpon.  The only
substantial difference in the oxycoccus and macrocarpon is the size of
the berry.  Both European species are native to Britain and the northern
part of continental Europe.  Perhaps the berry has shown up in period
use by its alternate name, the red whortleberry. "

Expanding, the species Vaccinium oxycoccus is the Small CRANBERRY
and is identical except for size to the American species Vaccinium
macrocarpon.   Oxycoccus grow in bogs both in the northern US and all
across Northern Europe (non-mediterannean) and the Trans-caucus area
of Asia minor where 90% of temperate fruiting species evolved.  Vaccinium
vitus idaea also is native to the US, known as the mountain cranberry or
sometimes foxberry.  In Europe, vitus idaea is what we call the LINGONBERRY
and has a somewhat similar flavour but in a jam it  is less tart than
regular cranberry sauce (at least that I tried tasted so to me; it also
seemed
sweeter).

The American species Vaccinium macrocarpon is one of FOUR native to
North America (the other being Vaccinium erythrocarpon, the bush cranberry
which is only native to above 4000 feet in the southern Appalachians -OOP).
Macrocarpon was a very local species indigenous to coastal New England but
very common in that area in the early 17th c.  Likewise the two European
species were very common and widespread in areas cool enough to produce
good fruiting.

It is now necessary to do a little food detective work and some speculation.
I think one of the problems with documenting cranberries is a little like
the problem of a recipe for almond milk.  They are so simple and the
process of using them, and yes, including making cranberry sauce, is so
simple, widespread, and prosaic that NO ONE BOTHERED TO WRITE
IT OUT.  Complicating this is the plethorea of confusing names for berries
in the Vaccinium family which includes blueberries.  Very likely there
are some period recipes out there in your files and you (and a lot of
food history authors) just didn't connect the fruit with cranberries.

Here is a listing of current use names for V. oxycoccus: Swed: tranbar,
Fr: canneberge, Gr: Moosbeere, It: mortella di palude, Esp: arandano agrio,
Port: arando, Dan/Nor: tranebaer, Finn:isokarpalo, Rus: klyukva, Pol:
zurawina, Czeck: klikva and zorawina, Slov: klukva mociarna, Hung:
tozegafonya,Ser/Cro: brusnica and Rom: rachitelele.

Here is a listing for current use names for V vitus idaea:
Fr: myrtille rouge, Gr: Preiselbeere, Port: uva dos montes, Dan/Nor:
tyttebaer, Swed: lingon, Fin: puolukka,  Rus: brusnika, Polish: bruznica or
jagoda, Czeck: boruwka, Ser/Cro: borovnica, and Rom: merisoara.
(These names are from Alan Davidson's FRUIT, A CONNOISSEUR'S
GUIDE & COOKBOOK, Simon & Schuster, 1991)

Earlier names last century for V. oxycoccus are Fr: hirelle, Gr: Heidelbeere
and Mooreberrie as recorded by Andrew S. Fuller in THE SMALL FRUIT \
CULTURIST, Orange Judd Co., NY 1881.  Fuller states that "the Romans
probably did not know the cranberry until after their conquest in the north
of Europe".

Forgive me for not being able to include the correct dicritical markings of
the foreign language text as I have not learned how to find them in this
word processor.  If this were a Mac, I would have no problem (IBM =It
Baffles Me).

Please note the importance of realizing that all these names in many
languages DO NOT reflect their origins in the American cranberry.
They are strictly European and their roots go back to the Roman empire.
It is also critical to my informal proof that cranberries, unlike most other
food plants, have never swapped continents in domestic horticulture!
European species of cranberries, whortleberries, etc were not taken to
the American colonies BECAUSE THEY WERE ALREADY THERE;
the size was superior and the growing conditions favored the macrocarpon.
Conversely, macrocarpon was never taken into European cultivation, other
than in a brief experiment in the 1760's, and did not appear on European
tables until the 20th century mass market cultivation and importing from
America.  So we must assume that any European writings in period (or 17th
and 18th century) refer specifically to the familiar, native European
V. oxycoccus (unless of course, the reference is specific to the lingonberry
or one of the other related Vaccinium varieties).

Here are some of the current other language names for blueberry or bilberry:
Fr: myrtille or airelle, Gr: Blaubeere, Ital: mirtillo, Esp: arandano,
Dan/Nor: blabaer, Finn: mustikka or pensamustikka, Rus: chernika, Pol:
czarnica or czarna jagoda, Hung: fekete afonya, Rom: afina, Ser/Crot:
borovnica, Bul:borvinki.

Bilberries (especially. V. myrtillus)  are called Fr: airelle or myrtille,
Gr:
Trunkelbeere, Ital: mortella or mora, Dan: mosebolle, Nor: skinntryte, Swed:
odon, Finn: fuolukka< Rus: chernika and Bul: cherveni borovinki.  Other
English names are whinberry or wineberry and blaeberry.  You can also add
to this list the confusing and sometimes interchangable names for
huckleberry, whorleberry and hurtleberry.  Is it any wonder that we may
have not connected possible references between any of these names and
cranberries (European)?

Americans have a very Disneyesque view of the 1620 Plymouth Colony
beyond the twisting of history with John Smith and his child bride.  In
various cookbooks, I have seen that the cranberry was taken from
Europe to the  New World where it florished and has almost died out in
Europe (not true) since.  On the other extreme, we also read fairy tales
of the native Americans teaching the Pilgrims how to make cranberry
sauce and boil and butter corn-on-the-cob. There are several engravings
and illustrations of noble tatooed savages stirring an enourmous cauldrons
of boiling corn.  Excuse me.  I thought that the native American Indians
never progressed beyond the STONE age.   What museum has on display
one of these miraculous caludrons?  From my investigations, cranberries
were used by the Indian tribes of New England dried in pemmican
primarily or stuffed into venison and other game to inpart flavour.  They
knew how to steam and what we would call barbeque in pits, but as far
as having something to make true cranberry sauce.  Naw!  There are
descriptions of a mush of buffalo berries by other tribes but uncooked.
If the pilgrims had cranberry sauce, they already knew how to make it.
Look at the availability of ingredients: plentiful cranberries, wild honey
readily available or maple syrup (which was learned from the natives).
The colonists were not knowledgeable of court recipes and agriculture, nor
were they particularly good fishermen or hunters.  Somehow they managed
nearly to have  starved to death  in the midst of incredible bounty.  I have
to
assume that some of the women had at least marginally more experience
with the kitchen than in their rather dogmatic religion and remembered some
of her mother's or granny's teaching which included the basics of making
jams and marmalades.


What do I base this on, you may ask?  Sometimes the period chef fails to
write down "what everyone knows".  The basics with which "all familiar with
cooking" know, are left out (like how precisely to make almond milk for
example).
This leaves us, as modern cooks, vulnerable to a great deal  of speculation
and argument.  Fortunately, there have been a few instances of period
sources
written by non-cooks, who questioned the real cooks and wrote down the
recipes.  As these authors were not cooks, they also wrote down a lot of
the "basics which everyone knows" that the cooks tended to omit providing
instruction.


For period documentation of cranberry sauce, I look to a noncook - John
Gerard.  His huge "HERBAL OR GENERAL HISTORY OF PLANTS has a
(rarely included) recipe under "whortleberries".  However, to find it you
need
access to the unabridged volume of the1633 (recently put out by Dover).
The reference to Vaccinium species is wholely under the heading "Of
Worts or Wortleberries", Third Book, chapter 73. pages 1415-19.  The
cranberry is illustrated as Vaccinia rubra "Red Worts or Wortleberries".  At
the end of page 1418, the Dutch name "rooter heidlebeere" and "rooter
crakenbelien"and the French "aurelles rouges" (red bilberry) are given.
Blueberries (which Gerard describes as black), are called in England-
Worts, Whortleberries, Blacke-berries, Bill-berries, Bull-berries and
Win-berries (pp. 1417).  Cranberries are Red Worts or red Whortleberries
(pp.1419). Reference is made to Conradus Gesnerus (Conrad Gesner)
calling this plant  "Vitus Idea rubus aemis" (which is probably a refernce
to
V. vitus idaea)  which Gerard finds not to agree with the berry growth
description with the English plant (which we must presume more likely to be
V. oxycoccus).  As his friend, Conrad Gesner was a Swiss naturalist, it is
expected that the variety he encountered and described was the highland
growing V. vitus idaea rather than the wet peat bog loving species V.
oxycoccus.

Under "The Virtues" (pp.1419) Gerard writes the following:
The juyce of the blacke Whortleberries is boyled till it become thick, and
is prepared or kept by adding hony and fugar vnto it".

This pretty much is how I make jellied cranberry sauce.  I believe however
that Gerard may have misunderstood the black whortleberry (blueberry) for
the(interchangable) red.  The thickening is caused by the higher acid
contentin the cranberry.  You can not make blueberry jelly or blueberry
sauce
by this method as there is insufficient pectin.  I would venture that a good
number of period recipes actually used cranberries instead of blueberries
through mistranslation.  One that comes to mind was one from FABULOUS
FEASTS for Artichokes in Blueberry Rice.  I would like to know from those
skilled in period languages if it is possible that cranberries were
mistakenly
translated in that recipe.  The gray-blue-purple hue of that dish is ghastly
and
the taste insipid.  Whereas, I would suspect the same recipe with
cranberries
would have a handsome colour - as Gerard comments: that It produces
"the fairest carnation colour in the world".  The sharpness of the cranberry
would also likely produce a more agreeable flavour in the rice without any
sugaring being used.  Anyone game to try it out?

To some, what I have written above is very slender justification for
extensive
use of the cranberry in period.  However I can not accept that a two species
plant of widespread distribution in Europe and Asia minor, in particular A
RED
BERRY!, would not be eaten.  Especially as they keep far, far longer than
other
fresh berries and when dried are quite palatable without cooking.  I venture
they
have been an important foodstuff since Neolithic times.   As to the sauce,
when
the concept of cooking fruit with honey and quinces to make marmalades came
about, there was a great deal of experimentation with this new method.  It
was
probably then that the discovery that boiled cranberries were sufficently
acid to
jell without quinces of other pectin rich fruits was made.  Going a little
further
in my speculation on this fruit, I believe that the reason we do not see
this in
mainstream "major population centers"  is that wild gathered berries were
more
likely food for peasant populations in very rural areas.  Unlike the other
major
(tree) fruits, cranberries (and strawberries too) were not cultivated
(strawberries
were, however, in the late 15th).   One major reason I believe cranberries
to be
widely used was the fact that the 400 years from 1200 to 1600 were much,
much
colder than today.  A documented mini- Ice Age occurred during that time
which
was ideal for the colder growing conditions necessary for cranberry species.
Both species would have flourished in this kind of climatic change, moving
further
south in their distribution into southern France and Northern Italy.

This comes full circle now with cold weather climates (the Viking cuisine)
and the
lingonberry, which I understand was primarily eaten uncooked.  This may have
been fresh or dried.  I have seen references to sweetened lingonberries
(dried?)
eaten with venison in several mundane Scandanavian cookbooks under the
subject of old foods of Scandinavia.  Has anyone seen any period references?
(the gest of my original query).

I hope this has been interesting (or at least amusing in my presumptions) to
some
and will encourage a little rummaging around to see if my beliefs have any
hope
of validation.

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"

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