Pineapple

The pineapple is a tropical fruit with a tough, spiky skin and a crown of leaves. It is not a single fruit but dozens of small fruits, each from a separate flower, that have fused together around a central stalk. A pineapple plant usually takes eighteen months to two years to produce its first fruit, and produces one at a time.^[1] A pineapple bought in a shop is, therefore, a fair part of someone's decade.

It eats back

Pineapple contains bromelain, a mixture of enzymes that break down protein. When a person eats fresh pineapple, the bromelain starts gently breaking down the proteins on the surface of their mouth, which is why it can make the tongue tingle or feel sore.^[2] The pineapple is the only fruit that, while being eaten, is also eating.

Cooking or canning destroys the enzyme, which is why tinned pineapple does not tingle and why fresh pineapple will not set in a jelly.

Status symbol

In eighteenth-century Britain pineapples were so rare and expensive, being grown in heated hothouses, that they became a symbol of wealth and hospitality. Some were reportedly rented out for an evening to be displayed at dinner parties, then returned uneaten. Carved stone pineapples still decorate gateposts and buildings from the period. The pineapple is the only fruit that has worked as a table decoration on a short-term contract.

See also

• Banana – a fruit with legal complications
• Hexagon – the shape of its skin segments, roughly
• Orange – a simpler fruit
• Tulip mania – another time a plant was too expensive
• Pear – a fruit with a less confusing name

References

1. Crown, C. (1999). Two Years for One. Plantation Press.
2. Enzyme, E. (2006). “The Fruit That Eats Back”. Food Chemistry Notes 1: 1.
3. Hireling, H. (1770). Pineapple for Hire. Fictional reprint.