Cranberries

1. Cranberries don't actually grow underwater.

2. Despite what you might imagine based on those Ocean Spray commercials, it's only at harvest time that sandy cranberry bogs are artificially flooded with water. Cranberries have air pockets inside that let them float, which makes them easy to pick en masse.

3. But that's only for berries that are destined to be juice, jelly, Craisins, etc. Whole fresh cranberries — the kind you buy in bags at Thanksgiving — are never flooded, instead getting "dry-harvested" by picking machines that comb the berries out.

4. This magic property (which is thanks to the same air pockets that lets cranberries float) was discovered in 1880 by the compellingly named cranberry innovator John "Peg Leg" Webb, who dropped a bunch of cranberries down the stairs. Growers today actually still test berries' athletic abilities to determine their quality, and sort them accordingly, with a tool called the "bounce board separator" — the higher the bounce, the better the berry.