Hunting for Cranberries!

The hunt for the elusive cranberry in Italy:

Last year I was such an innocent. I decided to "wow" M’s family with a real authentic American Thanksgiving meal. Everything turned out fabulous, and they enjoyed the strange food, (a turkey cooked whole in the oven) to name one. But during my planning stages, I was stymied by the hunt for the elusive cranberry. I have heard that in Italy you can obtain cranberries if you "know" someone for example from an American military base... because I have heard that cranberries are specially brought to this country so American military families can enjoy them with their Thanksgiving meals. But I cannot confirm this, since I don’t "know" anyone.
I have never particularly liked cranberries, I mean- I think they are ok, but eating them once a year on Thanksgiving was enough. But, once I started hunting for them here, and the more it seemed I would never find them, the more I started craving them. I am backwards like that. I didn’t appreciate them in the U.S. I had to move somewhere you can’t find them to want them.
But I needed cranberries for my authentic dining experience for the in-laws... so I searched high and low. First I looked in the dictionary. Cranberry = Mirtillo. I looked up Mirtillo and found out that the English equivalent of Mirtillo was Bilberry or Whortleberry. What? Ok. Confusing. But I had already known what a Mirtillo was since I buy them frozen for smoothies. A Mirtillo is a blueberry. So, according to the dictionary, a cranberry is a blueberry. Armed with this knowledge, we went asking the fruit sellers.  Everyone scratched their heads and said "Signora, you are looking for a red blueberry?" Finally ............. I found mirtilli rossi! Red blueberries! They were a tiny package of dried cranberries (confirmed by a taste test) and I had found them near the raisins in Coop. I couldn’t make a lovely cranberry sauce with them, but I bought them anyway for proof! Cranberries can be found in Italy.
I am planning the Thanksgiving feast again this year, but this time I won’t be looking for cranberries. But it’s ok. The craving is over.