SC - cranberries

[Jennifer D. Miller]

A friend on the Slavic Interest Group List passed this on to me when I
asked if cranberries were period.  A native Russian on the list was
suprised that we actually cultivated them here in America, apparently they
are incredibly prolific there.  Off to peruse my Russian sources...
  

The author (Mistress Agnes of Calontir) is a botanist professionally.  I
just snipped from her longer letter.
******************************************************************
**  the word "cranberry" is post period.

**The plant we use is American (Vaccinium macrocarpum).  All over the
world people eat the berries of their local Vaccinium species [Volcano
House on Hawai'i sells the Hawaii species as jam]. Blueberries are a
blue-fruited Vaccinium.  Lingonberry is a red-fruited Vaccinium.  

**All across northern Europe is a native red-fruited Vaccinium (V.
oxycoccus), a
little smaller than the American form, but otherwise very very similar. 
Moss berry and bog berry are the English for it (before the word cranberry
took over), distributed in Scandiavia and across Russia and into Siberia.  Not
common in England, more so in Scotland.  Doubtful in Denmark, & Germany,
no problem in Norway and Sweden.

**Europe also has the 'cowberry' or "mountain cranberry" V. vitis-idaea,
(of which the lingonberry is a variety). The cowberry is relatively common
in England. Even this might be a "cranberry" since we substitute currants
for raisins, (and our apples are the wrong variety and our strawberry is a
North American x South American hybrid, at least as distant from period
strawberries as the American cranberry is from bog berries.) 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ilyana Barsova (Yana)  ***mka Jennifer D. Miller
jdmiller2 at students.wisc.edu *** http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~jdmiller2 
Slavic Interest Group http://www.uwplatt.edu/~goldschp/slavic.html
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