LINGON MEANING SKIN
LINGON MEANING FULL

But procyanidins (PACs) are the main story. It’s an anti-oxidant purported to reduce cell inflammation and prevent DNA damage, and perhaps lower the risk of some cancers.

LINGON MEANING SKIN

Anthocyanins give cranberry skin its apparent sun-blocking and cell damage repairing powers (the same is true for the delicate new leaves of sugar maple and many other trees in the spring, when they take on a reddish tone).Īccording to John Sauve, a wild berry marketing expert with the Food and Wellness Group in Portland, Maine, anthocyanin is “part of the health story,” used to promote the berry as a health food. The color reflects the production of anthocyanins in response to bright sun exposure. Only that part of the berry most exposed to sun turns bright red early in the season. (Crayola Crayons recognized the skin tone qualities of cranberry when in 2005 they changed the official color Cranberry, added in 1998, to “Blush”). Instead, they exhibited a host of shades, mid-summer onward: porcelain white, verdigris, pale pink, and red as deep as my father’s ruddy cheeks. But they resisted turning uniformly until late in the fall. Lingon sylt was kept in loose-lidded bean pots, served with school lunches and often eaten with blood pudding or other pork dishes.Īll summer I watched the mountain cranberries, waiting for them to turn red so I could harvest and eat them. She used a tool shaped like a broad fork with teeth that separated berries from leaves and directed them into a canvas bag. My wife, who spent part of her childhood in Sweden, remembers going out with the family to gather lingonberries by the gallon. The berries are so high in benzoic acid that, cooked down with sugar, they need no refrigeration. Russians preserve lingon in water and sometimes use it flavor vodka. The Finns eat lingon and mashed potatoes with sautéed reindeer. A dollop of lingon goes on everything from white fish to cabbage. They eat lingon sylt (cranberry sauce) all winter long. Rural Swedes gather lingon in mass quantities from their northern central valleys. vitis-idaea is the same species Scandinavians call lingonberries.

Smaller than their cousin macrocarpon, and nestled in with crowberry, bilberry, dwarfed birches and other alpine specialists, V. These are mountain cranberries, Vaccinium vitis-idaea. I became interested in cranberries when I discovered them growing above the tree line in the White Mountains years ago. According to passed down knowledge, the Algonquin used the leaves of cranberry to treat bladder infections, arthritis, and diabetes-related circulation problems. Mariners brought them on sea voyages to fend off scurvy.

LINGON MEANING FULL

They crushed them into animal fats and dried deer meat to make pemmican, a food full of energy and vitamin C for long winter trips. The Wampanoag called them ibimi, meaning sour or bitter berries. Yes, cranberries are tart, sour, and even bitter, but that makes them both good food and strong medicine. How times change! The humble American cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, in my opinion, is worthy of a downright homage. If I ventured to eat a berry I experienced the power of my gag reflex. As a kid fidgeting at my grandmother’s Thanksgiving table, I often wondered, what’s the point of cranberries? She had a live-in Irish cook who insisted on serving whole cranberries suspended in a kind of gelatinous inverted bog.

Lingon meaning