Serve Homemade Cranberry Sauce at Thanksgiving Dinner

It's a funny thing about Thanksgiving dinners: almost everything on the table is homemade, except, invariably, the cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving hosts spend a long day slaving away in the kitchen, preparing the entire dinner menu with both devotion and endless muttering. There's pride in the preparation, but--inexplicably--not when it comes to cranberry sauce. The irony is that homemade cranberry sauce is one of the quickest and easiest elements of a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare, and one of the most nutritious.

Not that I dislike canned cranberry sauce. That ubiquitous can-molded gelatinous purpley-burgundy glob is admittedly a tasty Thanksgiving dinner side dish. But it sure ain't cranberry, and it sure ain't sauce. Someone entirely unfamiliar with it might even question whether it was fit for human consumption.

Fresh homemade cranberry sauce has a more obviously edible aura. It's a simple, unique offering, bringing a bit more attention to the traditional but unassuming Thanksgiving dinner accompaniment.

The real cranberry sauce also happens to be quite nutritious. Cranberries are high in Vitamins A and C, as well as potassium. Most people know that cranberries can help prevent and treat urinary tract infections, but they've been shown to do a lot more. They have anti-inflammatory properties, improve the circulatory system and heart health, help prevent ulcers and brain degeneration, and they contain tannins that block the oxidation of bad cholesterol. Crantastic health benefits from a mighty little berry. There are also healthy additions to homemade cranberry sauce, addressed below.

In contrast, canned cranberry sauce is heavily processed, artificially colored and flavored, and almost completely devoid of nutritional value.

I'm certainly not suggesting that Thanksgiving dinner is a time to worry about healthy eating. It's not. It's a time for the good ol' American tradition of gorging ourselves on anything and everything in reach. I mention the nutrition aspect only to bolster my argument ever so slightly for making homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner.