World's Largest Can of Cranberry Sauce Is Cracked Open in NYC

There is always a debate surrounding cranberry sauce this time of year — canned or cooked at home? On your food or on the side? Love it or can't stand to look at it?

One New York City exhibit is paying tribute to it all.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not! features the world’s largest can of cranberry sauce, which is made of 5,700 cranberries. That’s enough to serve 3,200 people, according to the attraction.

There is more of a history to the jellied stuff than you may realize.             

“The actual first national day of Thanksgiving was in the middle of the Civil War as a way to unite the country. Cranberry sauce was actually on the menu for the union troops,” said Kellyann Dingan, the director of global corporate affairs at Ocean Spray, a group of growers of cranberries.

Cranberries have been used in everything from medicines to clothing dye, dating back to the mid 1500s.

A hundred years ago, cranberry sauce wasn't available year round, just during the harvest season, from September to November. Now Americans eat 400 million pounds of cranberry sauce every year — with 80 million of that getting gobbled down on turkey day.

Check out the video above to learn more. 

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