Cranberry Orange Relish

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, this week I'm sharing a series of vintage recipes that are sure to turn heads at your holiday table. Bon appetit!

Do you have unusual food traditions at your holiday feast? Like creamed pearl onions, or tomato aspic, or jello salad? There's always one relative who insists it just isn't [insert holiday here] without the [insert weird recipe here]. And so the tradition continues even though no one really likes it or even knows where it came from.

Tomorrow, both of our families will come together for a combined Thanksgiving meal. Instead of driving across the state for two different family dinners, we've implemented a new custom that blends two families and two sets of traditions. We don't serve anything too off-the-wall, but we do have some special requests that may or may not be accommodated, depending on interest, ability, and demand. For example, my dad likes oyster dressing, but I'm pretty sure he's the only one, so that dish likely won't make the cut this time. A handful of us enjoy green bean casserole, so with a critical mass of green bean lovers, that one's a go. And though I don't think there's anyone who particularly loves cranberries, they're so easy to make that there's no good reason not to include them on the table. So there.

If you don't have a cranberry relish recipe for your table tomorrow, feel free to borrow this one from Fascinating Cranberries and How to Serve Them. Printed by the American Cranberry Exchange in 1936, "this little book is given to you that you may have tried and tested cranberry recipes for handy reference."

Cranberry Orange Relish
(No Cooking)
The aristocrat of relishes. Particularly good with all meats, hot or cold. 

1 pound (4 cups) cranberries
1 to 1 1/2 oranges
2 cups sugar

Method: Put cranberries through meat grinder. Pare orange with sharp knife; remove seeds; trim off white membrane (leaving the pulp exposed on the surface). 

Remember when we made sweet potatoes in orange shells? I saved the leftover pulp for just this occasion. Waste not, want not.

Put rind and pulp through grinder, mix with sugar and berries.

 
I should mention a few adaptations here. First, I used a food processor, not a meat grinder for this recipe. Because it's 2015 now.

Second, I halved the sugar called for in this recipe. Keep in mind, this recipe came from the 1930s--a time before WWII food rations. A time when sugar rained from heaven above. Or something. But just because one has two cups of sugar, does not mean one needs two cups of sugar. Except we actually didn't have two cups of sugar; we ran out after pouring in one cup. So we didn't really have a choice this time, but we totally would have chosen to cut the sugar even if we'd had 10 cups available.

Let stand before serving. For future use pour in glasses, cover with paraffin.

I poured the relish in a couple of mason jars and stored them in the fridge, ready for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. So easy, so pretty! I imagine we'll have a lot leftover, but l don't care. It isn't really Thanksgiving without the cranberry sauce.