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The Wrong End of a Pineapple!

The pineapple has served as both a food and a symbol throughout the human history of the Americas. Originally unique to the Western Hemisphere, the fruit was a culinary favorite of the fierce Carib Indians who lived on islands in the sea that still bears their name.

The presence of pineapples on Caribbean islands was not a natural event, but rather the result of centuries of indian migration and commerce. Accomplished dugout canoe navigators, the maritime tribes explored, raided and traded across a vast expanse of tropical oceans, seas and river systems. The herbaceous plant they called “anana,” or “excellent fruit,” originally evolved in the inland areas of what is now Brazil and Paraguay and was widely transplanted and cultivated. Highly regarded for its intense sweetness, the “excellent fruit” was a staple of indian feasts and rites related to tribal affirmation. It was also used to produce Indian wine( though I have to say that I’ve never in my life come across it).

The first encounter between a European and a pineapple occurred in November, 1493, when Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage to the Caribbean region, lowered anchor in a cove off the lush, volcanic island of Guadaloupe and went ashore to inspect a deserted Carib village. There, amidst parrot-flecked jungle foliage and wooden pillars spiraled with serpent carvings, his crew came upon cook pots filled with human body parts. Nearby were piles of freshly gathered vegetables and fruits, including pineapples. The European sailors ate, enjoyed and recorded the curious new fruit which had an abrasive, segmented exterior like a pine cone and a firm interior pulp like an apple. The Renaissance Europe to which Columbus returned with his discoveries was a civilization largely bereft of common sweets. Sugar refined from cane was a rare commodity imported at great cost from the middle east and orient. Fresh fruit was also a rare item; orchard-grown fruit being available in only limited varieties for brief periods of time. In such a gastronomic milieu, reports and later samples of the New World’s pineapple - whose ripe yellow pulp literally exploded natural sweetness when chewed - made the fruit an item of celebrity and curiosity for royal gourmet and horticulturist alike. Despite dogged efforts by European gardeners, it was nearly two centuries before they were able to perfect a hothouse method for growing a pineapple plant. Thus, into the 1600s, the pineapple remained so uncommon and coveted a commodity that King Charles II of England posed for an official portrait in an act then symbolic of royal privilege - receiving a pineapple as a gift. Across the ocean, the pineapple took on other symbolic meanings in England’s American colonies. The colonies were then a land of small, primitive towns and settlements where homes served as the hubs of most community activity. Visiting was the primary means of entertainment, cultural intercourse and news dissemination. The concept of hospitality - the warmth, charm and style with which guests were taken into the home - was a central element of the society’s daily emotional life. Ships brought in preserved pineapples from Caribbean islands as expensive sweetmeats - pineapple chunks candied, glazed and packed in sugar. The actual whole fruit was even more costly and difficult to obtain. Wooden ship travel in the tropics was hot, humid and slow, often rotting pineapple cargoes before they could be landed. Only the speediest ships and most fortuitous weather conditions could deliver ripe, wholesome pineapples to the confectionery shops of cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Annapolis and Williamsburg. A hostesses’s ability to have a pineapple for an important dining event said as much about her rank as it did about her resourcefulness, given that the street trade in available fresh pineapples could be as brisk as it was bitchy. So sought after were the prickly fruits that colonial confectioners sometimes rented them to households by the day. Later, the same fruit was sold to other, more affluent clients who actually ate it. As you might imagine, hostesses would have gone to great lengths to conceal the fact that the pineapple that was the visual apogee of their table display and a central topic of their guests’ conversation was only rented!