[Sca-cooks] Cranberries was Twill weaves and garb,

[Johnna Holloway]

If you really want to introduce a new subject and have someone comment
on a question you really must change the subject heading. People
probably never saw your question
since it was buried in a post on twill weaves and garb.

That being said---

You asked:
When did cranberries make it to the Old World? (I'm sure it wasn't in
Period, I just want a new topic.)

And why do you think they didn't have a form of cranberry in the Old
World???

You see this is a trick question.

Genus /Vaccinium/, family Ericaceae: several species.

If you look under
"Vaccinium" /A Dictionary of Plant Sciences/. Michael Allaby. Oxford
University Press, 2006. /Oxford Reference Online/.
you will find this entry:

"Vaccinium/* (bilberry; family *Ericaceae
A genus of mostly low shrubs, often evergreen, with alternate, *simple
leaves, *tetra-  or *pentamerous  flowers with mostly bell- or 
urn-shaped *corollas  and *inferior  *ovaries, and *berry-like
fruits. There are some 450 species, found mostly in the northern
(temperate zone and the Arctic, with some tropical mountain outliers.
Several species are cultivated, particularly the American cranberry (V.
macrocarpon), with reflexed corolla lobes, from whose berries cranberry
sauce is made; European cranberry (V. oxycoccos) is a similar but
smaller species, also with edible berries, found in bogs throughout the
northern temperate zone."

• /Vaccinium vitis-idaea/, family Ericaceae. • the edible acid berry of
the cowberry plant.

If you look under "cranberry" /An A-Z of Food and Drink/. Ed. John Ayto.
OUP, 2002 /Oxford Reference Online/
you will find:
"Cranberries grow in Britain, but in medieval times they went under a
variety of names such as /marsh-wort, fen-wort, fen-berry/, and
/moss-berry/. The term /cranberry/ did not appear until the late
seventeenth century, in America. It was a partial translation of
/kranbeere/, literally ‘craneberry,’ brought across the Atlantic by
German immigrants (the German word is an allusion to the plant's long
beaklike stamens). It was the Germans and Scandinavians, too, who
probably popularized the notion of eating cranberries with meat..."

Look up bilberry and you are told " bilberry /noun/ ( pl. bilberries ) a 
hardy dwarf shrub with red drooping flowers and
dark blue edible berries, growing on heathland and mountains in northern
Eurasia. • Genus Vaccinium , family Ericaceae: several species, in
particular V. myrtillus . • the small blue ..." Variously known as
whortleberry, blaeberry, whinberry, huckleberry"

Ayto says: "Bilberries are the small purplish-blue berries of a bush
(/Vaccinium myrtillus/) of the heath family. They are used for making
tarts, flans, sorbets, etc. The name is probably of Scandinavian origin:
Danish has the related /bøllebaer/ ‘bilberry’, of which the first
element seems to represent Danish /bolle/, ‘ball, round roll’.
Alternative names for it include /whortleberry/, (in Scotland and
northern England) /blaeberry/, and (in North America) /huckleberry/. In
French the bilberry is known as the /myrtille/ or /airelle/."

Then there are "cowberries pl. *cowberries*) a low-growing evergreen
dwarf shrub of the heather family, which bears dark red berries and
grows in northern upland habitats. See also *lingonberry
which is defined as *lingonberry* Fruit of the small evergreen shrub
Vaccinium vitis-idaea; contains high levels of *benzoic acid.
Also known as cowberry or lingberry."

All of the above comes out of Oxford Reference Online.

We've discussed this in the past so you can as always check the
Florilegium too.

Johnnae


Judith Epstein wrote:
> Yes, these "simple" T-tunics were the things I mucked up so royally. 
> Sewing, like cooking, is something maybe some people can learn from a 
> book, but I cannot. I need someone with patience to show me in person. 
> Thank you both, though. Let's get back to cooking. When did 
> cranberries make it to the Old World? (I'm sure it wasn't in Period, I 
> just want a new topic.)
>