{"id":883,"date":"2023-11-16T18:58:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T00:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/?p=883"},"modified":"2024-06-19T06:12:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T11:12:06","slug":"did-you-know-cranberries-float","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/16\/did-you-know-cranberries-float\/","title":{"rendered":"Did You Know Cranberries Float?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m so blessed to have many warm childhood memories of the holidays, and because of those memories, I\u2019ve made a point of creating the same for my children\u2014and now, my grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a delight as parents to share the things that mean so much to us with our children, and doing so is part of establishing our legacy. But perhaps your childhood wasn\u2019t particularly happy and you can hardly bear to think of it, let alone recall a pleasant holiday experience. If so, this might be the year to create new memories and change the legacy of your family. Whether cherishing old traditions or creating new ones, you can help ensure the children in your life have joyful memories to treasure. Sometimes it\u2019s as simple as a few floating cranberries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With my New England roots, our Thanksgiving dinner always included fresh cranberry orange relish. Since I was the oldest\u2014and the most responsible\u2014I was allowed in the kitchen at a very early age. The day before Thanksgiving, Grammy Chapman and I would make our cranberry relish. After donning aprons, we emptied the bag of cranberries into a sink full of water for rinsing and sorting. I loved to swish my hands in the cold water and see the cranberries float to the top. I could splash around all I wanted and not get in trouble! My little fingers were the perfect size for examining each berry. If I found a squishy one, I threw it away; if I found one with a stem, I pulled off the stem. Then I carefully placed all the rinsed and now perfect berries in the colander to drain. While I was preparing the cranberries, Grammy Chapman got out the old-fashioned meat grinder, tightened it on the cutting board, and cut an orange into eighths.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"cranberries
Floating Cranberries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now the exciting part really began! Grammy turned the crank, and I plopped the cranberries into the opening of the meat grinder. The juice bubbled up, and the cranberries floated on the top of the opening. It was lots of fun to add more berries and watch them pop back up. (Grammy was careful that my fingers didn\u2019t get too close to the grinder.) Now and then, we\u2019d insert a piece of orange and watch the color change as the fruit came out. Once all the fruit had been put through the grinder, we poured sugar over it, and I got to stir it all together. Then Grammy spooned the relish into jars and put them in the refrigerator for the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One year, my sons couldn\u2019t be home until Thanksgiving Day. With no one home to help, I made the relish by myself. Rather than create the mess the grinder makes, I decided I\u2019d just throw everything into my food processor. It was much quicker and neater\u2014but it just wasn\u2019t the same. It was ground too fine and had lost the familiar texture I prefer. Since then, I find the old grinder and do it the old-fashioned way\u2014even if I have to do it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still have Grammy Chapman\u2019s antique food grinder and have even purchased two more at antique stores so I can pass one on to each of my three sons for their own household. But now, I\u2019m the grammy and the grandchildren come to my house to make cranberry orange relish\u2014just like I did with my grandmother! Just like I did, they love playing with the cranberries in the sink. As I introduce each of my seven grandchildren to making cranberry relish, I love to see the joy in their eyes as they exclaim: \u201cGrammy, did you know cranberries float?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
JJ with Floating Cranberries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Here’s the Orange<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"JJ
JJ Grinding Cranberries with his Great-Great-Grandmother’s Grinder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mary Clare, my oldest granddaughter who is now 9 and has been making cranberry relish for years, recently reflected: \u201cOh yes, that’s the best part of making cranberries because they float even though you don’t expect them to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Mary
Mary Clare with JJ grinding Cranberries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Mary Clare teaching her little brother about cranberries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What family traditions can you pass on to your children and grandchildren?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0This story is a slightly modified version of the one found in my book Making the Blue Plate Special<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Cranberry
Cranberry Relish Recipe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\n\n\n
\n
\"Dark
Lauren Littauer Briggs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Through her speaking and writing, Lauren<\/a> encourages people with her heartfelt messages and practical presentations. She is the author of The Art of Helping<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 What to say and Do When Someone is Hurting.  Lauren and her family are active in both church and community choral groups. She lives in Redlands, CA.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Clare, my oldest granddaughter who is now 9 and has been making cranberry relish for years, recently reflected: \u201cOh yes, that’s the best part of making cranberries because they float even though you don’t expect them to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,175,202],"tags":[61,204,65,203],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-entertaining","category-grandparents-relationships","category-holidays","tag-best-life","tag-cranberries","tag-entertaining","tag-grandparenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/livingyourbestlife60plus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}