PINEAPPLES – A SHORT BUT FRUITY HISTORY

This post is intended in part as a celebration of passing the 50,000 hits mark today. So much interest in the wildlife of one small island – thanks to all those who have visited during the last year or so

The first image below is of the handsome locally hand-carved pineapple that surmounts the roof of the Delphi Club, Abaco. The fruit lost a few leaves in Hurricane Irene last August, which scored a direct hit on the Club. As posted on the ABACO FACTS page (under RANDOM main menu) “the precise Longitude & Latitude coordinates of the Pineapple [on] the Delphi Club roof are respectively –77.1787834167480  &  26.20450323936187 “. But why is it there? Time for a Short Voyage around the Pineapple…

PINEAPPLE FACTS TO ENLIVEN YOUR CONVERSATION

HISTORICAL & SOCIAL CONTEXT

• Brought back to Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his return from his second voyage
• Taken on long voyages as a protection against scurvy and because of its long life
• By the c17 royalty & aristocracy grew them in hot-houses (or rather, their gardeners did). King Charles II tried one, an event so important it was recorded by the Court painter Hendrik Danckerts 

• By c18 considered a great delicacy and a status symbol of wealth, often the centre-piece of a feast.
• If you couldn’t afford to buy one, you could rent one and return it afterwards. Someone richer than you would then buy it.
• Pineapples were grown in pits of fermenting manure. In England Queen Victoria was not amused and soon put an end to that unpleasant nonsense
• In the c19 pineapples were one of the most significant exports from Abaco
• The Earl of Dunmore built a huge pineapple folly in Scotland in 1761, which you can stay in (We have. It’s a lot of fun)

   

CULTURAL SYMBOLISM

• Pineapples symbolise welcome and hospitality, placed at the entrance to villages or plantations. The tradition spread to Europe where they were carved as gateposts; staircase finials; and incorporated into wooden furniture (including bedposts at the Delphi Club)

• Seafarers put pineapples outside their homes on their return to show that they were back from their travels and ‘at home’ to visitors
• An expensive fruit to grow & to transport; remained a luxury until the arrival of steamships
• Their costliness made them status symbols / indicators of wealth and rank. Displaying or serving pineapple showed that guests were honoured
• In the 1920s the grandest dinners apparently needed both “a pineapple and Lady Curzon” (I have been asked whether this is Interwar Period code for some sort of disreputable activity… I need to check)
• The future Queen Elizabeth was sent 500 cases of canned pineapple as a wedding present from Australia. She asked them “Hev you come far?” Prince Phillip’s reaction was – apart from the word ‘pineapple’ – unprintable
• In the play Abigail’s Party (Mike Leigh) pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks were used as a plot device to highlight the desperate social ambitions of a hellish hostess trying to impress & outclass her guests
• A 1930s ad promised that by baking a pineapple pie a wife would make her man “smack his lips in real he-man enjoyment” (NB This may not work so well in the 2010s) 

By Appointment to HM the Queen

ARTS & CRAFTS

• Used on Wedgwood pottery designs as early as the 1760s; others soon followed suit
• Became widely used decoratively as a motif for gateposts, weather vanes, door lintels, wallpaper, table linen & curtains, and incorporated into furniture
• Featured in still life paintings as a crowning example of opulence

                                  

• Depicted in plant and fruit studies, for example these by Johann Christoph Volckamer, very early c18        
• Featured in music e.g. Pineapple Rag (Scott Joplin); Pineapple Head (Crowded House); Escape – The Piña Colada Song (Rupert Holmes); Pineapple Express (Huey Lewis); Pineapple (Sparks) 
• Used as a motif on shutters in Marsh Harbour 
• The Men’s Singles Trophy at  Wimbledon is a silver gilt cup with a gilded pineapple on top of the lid. These days its meaning is “Welcome back, Roger!”

10 MISCELLANEOUS PINEAPPLE CHUNKS

• The cocktail Afterglow is 1 part grenadine, 4 parts orange juice & 4 parts pineapple juice on ice
• Piña Colada is rum, coconut milk & crushed pineapple. Omit the rum for a Virgin Colada
• It is impossible, for chemical reasons, to make jelly with fresh pineapple
• “Pineapple heat” was once a standard marking on thermometers
• A pineapple grows as two interlocking helixes (8 one way, 13 the other – each being a Fibonacci number)
• A pineapple will never become any riper than it was when harvested
• Workers who cut up pineapples eventually have no fingerprints – a gift fact for crime writers
• Pineapple stems are being tested for anti-cancer properties
• Pine Apple, a small Alabama town full of pineapple symbols, was originally named “Friendship” but there turned out to be another town called that, so they changed it
• Features on the Bahamian 5 cents coin…

• …and (later addition) a $1 stamp

STOP PRESS read Jim Kerr’s interesting article in ABACO LIFE on Abaco’s pineapple past HERE

FRANCESCA BEAUMAN 2006

THE PINEAPPLE – KING OF FRUITS

If you want to find out more about pineapples, their  history and social significance, you should be able to pick up a copy of this book on Am@z%n, Abe or ALibris for a few dollars

“What?” I hear you cry, “you’ve managed a whole page about pineapples without mentioning modern advertising”. Shall I do so now? The man from Del Monte, he says YES

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqmpVWzH4FM]

THIS POST HAS BEEN REVISED AND UPDATED HERE

Sources: Own ideas + some magpie-thieving-borrowing from a variety of online sources, many of which contain identical info and / or quote from the above book. Hope everyone is comfortable with that…

NB Not every fact above is strictly 100% true, so expect to be challenged if you roll one out. In particular Prince Phillip is of course naturally docile and gentle-mouthed…

POST SCRIPT The first 21 Fibonacci numbers (just add 2 successive numbers to produce the next) are

F0	F1	F2	F3	F4	F5	F6	F7	F8	F9	F10	F11	F12	F13	F14	F15	F16	F17	F18	F19	F20
0	1	1	2	3	5	8	13	21	34	55	89	144	233	377	610	987	1597	2584	4181	6765