Developing a Cran-Do Attitude

I found me some Brooklyn Berries, and that's a fact. Okay, they're not really called "Brooklyn Berries," but I think it's catchy. They're Viburnum Trilobum. You don't like Latin? Don't be like that, baby. I'm talking Highbush Cranberries!

Sam Thayer tells us, in his column From The Forager, "The small fruits, about a half-inch long, begin to turn from green to red in August." 



Prospect Park is full of 'em. I made reservations to tag long with Wildman Steve Brill's foraging tour in Prospect Park last Saturday ... but it was cancelled. (Thanks to Karen, all the same.) So, I set out on my own. The foraging people love to put supposedly delicious recipes up on their websites. Well, I figure, Hell. I can pick and cook. I'm not entirely without skills.


Well, let me tell you what a fucking disgusting experience that was from beginning to end. When you are cooking them, these things fucking stink like ten filthy wet dogs. One person said that "boiling high-bush cranberries smells like wet, dirty socks." I'd ammend that. It smells like boiling three-month old wet, dirty socks from a bum on the G train after he's been walking through shit. In July. 



Did the recipe work? I suppose. Yes, it made jelly. Mutant skank jelly, but jelly all the same. How does it taste? Picture it - I open the jar, barely cracking it at first, because I don't want the lethal stink to seep out like toxic waste. I put my spoon in ... I taste it. Is it edible? Yes. Do I like it? No. It tastes like what someone might have experienced just before they said, "I think these cranberries might have gone bad." Cranberry jelly, yes. But with a sick, underworldly bitterness to it. And it still stinks. 

I was really hoping it was going to be tasty. Ah, well. Fucking berries. Suffice it to say, I don't think this is a flavor that Smucker's is going to be considering. You have a tasty day, now.

-Parker