esrosedotblog

In another life, I worked for the famous cranberry company, my second job.

It was a great emancipation from my first job with a large chain store company in its "engineering" department. I had a good time but they really didn't need me there. I did a lot of sitting. My boss wanted an MIT guy in his department and that is what I was. They had no idea what to do with me.

So I left to work with the cranberry company in Hanson Massachusetts. A down-home cooperative housed in old factory buildings with makeshift furnishings and dilapidated equipment. I loved it.

I stayed there five years and learned to love the unlovable cranberry.

A fruit so tart and nasty to eat that people constantly felt that it had to be healthful.

At that time, it was all about urinary health. It was claimed and proven that cranberry juice was good for the bladder and helped you to pee.

A health claim is very hard to get approval for. They finally got it and medical journals lauded the fruit. Never mind that the strengths required for the berry to work its magic were almost impossible to ingest in 24 hours. And it always tasted too sour. Hence, a huge amount of corn and cane sugars added. So much for health.

But they are still chasing the health benefits. Just in, this: The Cure for UTIs? It’s Not Cranberries

Oops. No. Another miss. But gee, something that tastes so bad has to be good, right? Guess not.

I left the barn a long time ago, many years. But I always watched the results of the marketing attempts with interest. Fruit blends, dried "craisins" and the like.

The co-op had a fractious grower membership who could rarely agree on anything. This led to the ability of a strong management, brought in as "saviors", to run the brands around the course to see if they could win the marketing race on the grocery shelf. Or something.

Every fall, the harvest leads to a secondary harvest of news items. This year is no exception.

I still like the sauce. I bought a can of the whole berry the other day. It felt like home in my hand.

Labels: history