Just what is a cranberry? And other Thanksgiving Tales

I profited from the holiday season by using Thanksgiving as the basis for my lessons for two weeks. Unfortunately, the students did not seem to understand the concept of Thanksgiving. After having read and discussed the story of the first Thanksgiving, I still had students insisting that they celebrate it in France as well. They kept throwing out the names of various French holidays that they thought were the same as Thanksgiving (Valentine’s Day somehow worked its way in there). I guess the whole Pilgrims and Indians thing was lost on them. One of the girls asked if we received gifts at Thanksgiving. When I told them that we did not she replied, "well, that’s why we don’t have it in France." That was the end of that discussion.
Moving on to the Thanksgiving Day menu proved to be just as much of a challenge. Not knowing the word for cranberry, I looked it up in my French-English dictionary and wrote the translation (canneberge) on the handout as well. When we got there the students gave me a unanimously blank look. They were not at all familiar with the French word. I tried explaining cranberries and they kept suggesting strawberries and raspberries. We reached an impasse and so I had one of the students ask their professor when they returned to class. He said that it was a myrtille, which translates back to a blueberry. Not quite the same thing. I was dining at a colleague’s house the other night and somehow the subject of the cranberry incident came up. Neither she nor her husband was familiar with the word either. They looked it up in their French-English dictionary and had the same result as I did; so, they sought it out in their dictionary of cuisine. No luck. Needless to say we have yet to bridge the language gap on the subject of cranberries. I’ll be hitting the supermarket Monday so I’ll see what I can find.
Other than not knowing what a cranberry is, the students were quite enthralled by our dinner menu. When I told them that I would not be making a meal because that’s too much food for one person to eat, they suggested that I invite them over for dinner. As exciting as cooking for 500 sounded (even if I just invited the students from that school, I’d still have 200 guests), I explained that there wasn’t enough room at my place and that I’d pick up some turkey sandwich slices at the local supermarché.
Hope all of you are enjoying your Thanksgiving meal and perhaps even that little red fruit that has spawned an international quest for knowledge.