Rubies from the Bog: Growing Cranberries on Washington’s Family Farms
Cranberries play a key role in the history of American cuisine. Native Americans prized the tiny fruit that grew in cool, marshy places and turned bright-red in autumn. They called them ibimi, which means “bitter berry,” and used them extensively as both food and medicine. Legend also holds that the first settlers discovered these little jewels--possibly with the help of the native people--and that they were part of the historic first Thanksgiving in 1621. The slender, arching stem holding the berries reminded the Pilgrims of the neck of a crane. They named the fruit “crane-berries,” which in time became shortened to “cranberries.” Recognizing that the wild berries were a valuable supplement to their diet, they passed laws to protect the bogs where they grew.
Surprisingly, although Washington state produces only 4.5 percent of the total cranberry crop (both wet- and dry-harvested) for the United States, almost all of the fresh, dry-harvested cranberries sold are grown in one tiny sliver of the state. Grayland, Washington, is a small coastal community that’s squeezed between a ridge of tree-covered hills on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. On a strip of land measuring only one mile wide by seven miles long, 90 families farm approximately 1,000 acres of cranberry bogs. In this small area, the practically obsolete technique of dry harvesting cranberries has been preserved.
