National Eat-a-Cranberry Day, November 23, challenges individuals to try the surprising taset of cranberries, familiarly served as a side dish for Thanksgiving dinner.

Some Native Americans called the cranberries ibimi which means bitter berry. While cranberries can be eaten raw, and they are considered a superfruit, but they are most often cooked in pies and jellies or made into juice. The Native Americans and Pilgrims also used cranberries for red dye.

“The word cranberry comes from craneberry;  first named by the early European settlers in America who felt the expanding flower, stem, calyx, and petals resembled the neck, head and bill of a crane,” according to NationalDayCalendar.com. Cranberries grow in bogs that are commonly found in “ New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Quebec” (www.cranberries.org).

Start your Thanksgiving vacation with National Eat-a-Cranberry Day and make some cranberry desserts with your family. You can find delicious recipes at https://www.cranberries.org/recipes.