A native of North America, the cranberry was a favorite of the Indians who invented cranberry sauce sweetened with maple sugar or honey. Cranberries were an important ingredient in pemmican, the pounded dried meat and fat food that would keep forever. Cranberries are found wild in the sandy, cool temperature bogs of Massachusetts and New Jersey. These days cranberries are grown commercially in those states as well as in Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington. Massachusetts supplies 40% of the crop sold in the United States. High in Vitamin C, straight juice from the berry is also highly effective in keeping female plumbing healthy.

The cranberry gets its name from Dutch and German settlers, who called it crane berry. When the vines bloom in the late spring and the flowers' light pink petals twist back, they have a resemblance to the head and bill of a crane. Over time, the name was shortened to cranberry.

If you strung all the cranberries produced in North America last year, they would stretch from Boston to Los Angeles more than 565 times.

The cranberry is one of only a handful of major fruits native to North America. Others include the blueberry and Concord grape.