{"id":1546,"date":"2014-10-14T21:58:22","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T04:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=1546"},"modified":"2014-10-14T22:01:10","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T05:01:10","slug":"wild-cranberry-sauce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=1546","title":{"rendered":"Wild Cranberry Sauce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last June, while on a botanical survey, I happened across a peat bog on the way to the survey site. I find all bogs to be fascinating places, because of the unique flora they have, and this one was even more so because depending on where you are in it there&#8217;s two distinct types of bog: the more normal (for this latitude and climate) terrestrialization type, created by a rain-fed pond filling in, and the far less common (here; worldwide, most peatlands are this type) paludification type, caused when beavers dammed the pond after the land was clear-cut, waterlogging the soil and causing the sphagnum moss to spread onto it from the adjacent bog, expanding it. The old logging road bed itself was even revegetating with bog plants.<\/p>\n<p>Amongst those were wild cranberries, which were flowering profusely at the time. That naturally made me want to return in the fall to see if they were fruiting profusely. I did, and they were. I harvested just under a gallon of berries.<\/p>\n<p>The following recipe is adapted from &#8220;averaging&#8221; the measurements of several recipes for cranberry sauce I found on the Web and in my old copy of <em>The Joy of Cooking.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6 cups cranberries<\/li>\n<li>2 cups water<\/li>\n<li>3 cups sugar<\/li>\n<li>3 whole cloves<\/li>\n<li>1 large, fat <em>or<\/em> two skinny sticks of cinnamon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re going to can the result, have the necessary number of clean mason jars, lids, and bands ready in a boiling-water canner. Do this first. It takes a <em>long<\/em> time to get such a large pot boiling. By the time the cranberry sauce is ready to can, your canner should be ready as well (i.e. boiling hot).<\/p>\n<p>Wash the cranberries well in a large bowl. Agitate the water vigorously with your fingers to dislodge any old petals or sepals from the tips of the berries. Repeat until all such debris are removed.<\/p>\n<p>Bring the water to a boil, then add the cranberries, cinnamon, and cloves. Return to a boil and cook until the skins on the berries crack (for me, this was basically when the berries returned to a boil). Remove the cinnamon and cloves and put the berries through a food mill or ricer.<\/p>\n<p>Bring the cranberry pur\u00e9e to a boil and add sugar. Stir until dissolved then return to a full rolling boil then remove from heat.<\/p>\n<p>Yield about five pints.<\/p>\n<p>If canning (which is what I did, Thanksgiving is still nearly two months off), leave 1\/2&#8243; head space in each jar and process for 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last June, while on a botanical survey, I happened across a peat bog on the way to the survey site. I find all bogs to be fascinating places, because of the unique flora they have, and this one was even more so because depending on where you are in it there&#8217;s two distinct types of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}