PINEAPPLES REVISITED – A SHORT BUT FRUITY HISTORY

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

I rarely recycle old posts, though I sometimes rewrite them. Occasionally a past subject returns later as a new hot topic, usually because of some related event or news item. Suddenly I get a flurry of hits for ‘do manatees have toenails?’ or ‘does one good tern deserve another?’. That kind of thing. Right now – indeed for the past 10 days – the current sporting event in London SW19 (i.e. Wimbledon) has by a side-swipe of a mis-hit tennis racket affected the smooth operations at Rolling Harbour. The fruit generally associated most with Wimbledon is of course The Strawberry. Yes, they are now so expensive at the ground that they have to be sold singly. If you want Cream with it, they offer moderate loan terms in return for a charge on your house. A small cardboard box to eat it from is extra, though eating from your hand remains free. For now. But the fruit that is rocking the blog at the moment is the PINEAPPLE. I am suddenly getting lots of ‘search’ hits daily with various combos of the question “why is there a pineapple on top of the Wimbledon Trophy?” So I am rolling out my pineapple post from a couple of years back, slightly modified, which will answer this and many other ananatic questions. 

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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, 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)

• On ‘Unter den Linden’ in Berlin,  the cast iron posts round the huge equestrian statue of Frederick the Great are topped by pineapples.

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. And, coincidentally, that the hosts were loaded.
• 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… let’s hope the answer is ‘yes’)

• The future Queen Elizabeth was sent 500 cases of canned pineapple as a wedding present from Australia. She asked them the traditional Royal Question “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
• Depicted as curiosities in early botanical engravings (Commelin 1697 Hortus Botanicus)

• Featured in still life paintings as a crowning example of opulence (e.g. De Heem, Jan van Os)

                             Josef Schuster

• Depicted in plant and fruit studies, for example these by Johann Christoph Volckamer, very early c18        

• Occasionally found in Church stained glass windows (e.g. St Lawrence’s, Jersey)

• 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 

SPORT

• The Men’s Singles Trophy at  Wimbledon is a silver gilt cup with a gilded pineapple on top of the lid. It used to mean “Welcome back, Roger!” Now it stands for the first British male singles win since 1937 (‘Go, Andy!’). [British women have fared rather better in the singles in that time (‘Go, Angela, Ann & Virginia!’)]

MOTORING

• Vauxhall produced the Vauxhall Astra Sport in ‘tasteful’ Pineapple Yellow. For the history of the use of the far more glamorous Bahama Yellow  in motoring history, click HERE

10 TASTY 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  a $1 stamp

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

FOUR WAYS TO CUT UP & SERVE A PINEAPPLE

Sources: Own ideas + some magpie-thieving-borrowing from a variety of 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 try 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