After candy corn the next great divide in the holiday food scene is fresh cranberry sauce vs jellied, canned cranberry sauce.
There are strong voices on each side of this debate. Some good points about the canned, jellied variety are that you can enjoy it year-round, you can slice it — when is that not fun — and there is no prep. Just make sure your can opener is working.
For the fresh cranberry sauce aficionados, it is deceptively simple to prepare: Just boil the required proportion of sugar and water and then dump in the cranberries. Cooks for a bit, and then it thickens as it cools. And as it cooks, the cranberries make a festive, soft popping noise and the color is bright and cheerful.
In fact, this year, taking a poll on this very subject could be a great conversation starter with your guests. And it totally skirts the time-honored, dangerous topics of polite conversation: money, politics and religion, which could be very helpful this year.
As far as I see it, it’s a win-win. Here’s hoping for no conversational carnage at your table.
I’m Rosie Klepper and that’s my perspective.
