Cranberry foods and gifts from All Things Cranberry, Inc.

All Things Cranberry, Inc. is a Gourmet Food Company dedicated to the Art of Cranberry Creations.

Our founder, Clarisse Persanyi, has upheld her passion for this berry for many years. She has created a collection of delectable goodies through extensive recipe and market testing to bring you sumptuous sauces, confections, desserts and prepared foods to please both the cranberry novice as well as aficionados. .

Using only high-quality natural ingredients, our products are prepared in small batches to ensure freshness and flavor integrity. Only minimal natural preservatives are used .

The cranberry is a unique fruit that marries the flavors of sweet, tart, and slightly bitter making it remarkably versatile for baking, cooking, and infusing all sorts of foods We. explore this versatility to bring you an assortment of products which can be consumed on their own, used to complement your own cooking or snack on as a healthy alternative.

Clarisse Persanyi wins the 2004 Success Award from the Monmouth Ocean SBDC. Find out more.

We were written about in

the November 19, 2003 issues of the New York Times Dining & Wine section. See the FOOD STUFF column, Cranberries for Thursday (and Friday, Too), By FLORENCE FABRICANT.
the November 14 - 21, 2003 issue of The Two River Times, Monmouth Beach Business Proves There\'s More to the Cranberry Than Meets the Eye.
the November 20 - 26, 2003 issue of The LINK News, All Things Cranberry turns tart to treat.
the December 3, 2003 issue of the Star Ledger All Things Cranberry creatively lives up to its name.
the December 4, 2003 issue of the Asbury Park Press Have a Cranberry Holiday.
the June 11, 2004 issue of the The Star Ledger That\'s Shore good!.
the December, 2004 issue of the MONMOUTH health & life The berry best.
January 27, 2005 issue of Atlanticville Great Eats (and more) in Monmouth Beach
August 10, 2005 issue of The Star Ledger Excerpts from Heading for the Shore? Food Choices Abound
December 2, 2005 issue of The Two River Times Excerpt from Business & Real Estate Section Holiday Gifting Thinking "Outside The Box" by William L. Imhof
December 12, 2005 issue of Asbury Park Press, Business Section Entrepreneur builds business on the back of a little berry by David P. Willis

About the Cranberry

The cranberry is a fruit that is indigenous to North American (there are two other fruits native to this area: Concord grapes and blueberries). Native American used it to make a high protein cake called pemmican. Pemmican is a mixture of crushed cranberries, venison, and melted fat that has been formed into a cake and dried in the sun. It was carried on long journeys as an energy food (like a solid trail mix). They also used it as a medicine and a dye for rugs and blankets.

The first known harvesters of the cranberry in New Jersey, the Lenni-Lenapes, called it "pakim," meaning "noisy berry." By 1680, settlers were “buying” or bartering for the fruit with Native Americans. They found it made very tasty sauces to accompany turkey and other fowl.

However, it was the German and Dutch settlers gave us the name by which this wonderful fruit is known. Thinking that the vine blossom resembled the neck, head, and bill of a crane, they called them “craneberry.” Eventually, the spelling changed to cranberry.

The cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) is native to the swamps and bogs of northeastern North America. It belongs to the Heath, or Heather family (Ericaceae), which is a very widespread family of about 125 genera and about 3500 species! Members of the family occur from Polar Regions to the tropics in both hemispheres.

The cranberry plant is described as a low-growing, woody perennial with small, oval leaves borne on fine, vine-like shoots. Horizontal stems, or runners, grow along the soil surface, rooting at intervals to form a dense mat. Its flower buds, formed on short, upright shoots, open from May to June and produce ripe fruit in late September to early October.

In 1816, Henry Hall, a farmer in Cape Cod, started cranberry farming. He noticed that cranberries were larger and juicier where a layer of sand from the dunes blew over the vines. This sand layering technique is still used today.

In New Jersey, cultivation of the cranberry is believed to have begun in 1840 by John Webb who established a cranberry bog in Ocean County near Cassville. The berries were bought by ship merchants who sold them to whalers who kept them in barrels of cold water for the sailors to eat. It had been discovered that helped prevent scurvy (cranberries contain Vitamin C).

Cranberry Facts

The cranberry is grown in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Washington state, Oregon, British Columbia, and Quebec.
Cranberry Growing Facts from USA Today
New Jersey ranks third in the nation in cranberry production, behind Massachusetts and Wisconsin, producing about 10 percent of the total national output.
There are 440 cranberries in one pound
4,400 cranberries in a gallon of juice
440,000 in a 100-pound barrel
Americans consume over 400 million pounds of cranberries a year (only 80 million with their Thanksgiving turkey).
Only about 10 percent of the entire crop is “dry harvested” and sold as fresh fruit
85 percent is “wet harvested” and used to make juices, sauces, and other processed food items.
The cranberry vine has a very long life. Some vines are over 150 years old.
Martin Decker, Jr., Extension Agricultural Engineer at the College of Agriculture, Rutgers, developed the dryer used in New Jersey.
Thomas B. Darlington, a cranberry grower in New Lisbon, New Jersey, invented the dry harvester (called the Darlington picker, of course) that is pushed along the dry bog by a worker (much like a power mower). The rotating teeth scoop into the vines and lift off the fruit, which is carried by a conveyor belt to a removable container attached to the handlebars.
Wet harvesting is more efficient. To wet pick, floodgates on the reservoir feeding the selected area are opened and water flows into the ditches and over the vines, just enough to allow the water churn (resembles a large eggbeater). The rapidly rotating water reels stir up the water with sufficient force to dislodge the ripened-cranberries, which float to the surface in a brilliant red mass of color. The berries are corralled to one side of the bog where they are removed from the water to waiting trucks.
The three main requirements for successful cranberry cultivation are acid peat soil, a top layer of sand, and an abundant fresh water supply.
The major cranberry growing areas in New Jersey are Burlington, Atlantic, and Ocean counties. Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties also produce the fruit.