Excerpt from Caribbean Cuisine

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Pineapple, the ubiquitous sweet and spiny, island fruit long used as a symbol of a captain’s safe return from sea, was once an extremely rare commodity highly prized by Europe’s social elite. Pineapples arrived in the Caribbean in the canoes of Caribs migrating from present day Brazil and Paraguay. They called the fruit anana, meaning "excellent fruit." It was an important part of Carib feasts and rites related to tribal affirmation.

Credit: Jim Raycroft

Europeans first encountered the pineapple on Columbus’s second voyage to the Caribbean in 1493 on the island he named Guadeloupe. The Spanish explorers referred to the fruit as piña for its resemblance to a pinecone. While most European tongues continue the tradition of calling the fruit anana, the English translated the word and added "apple", a designation they gave to most fruits.

In 15th- and 16th-century Europe sweets and fresh fruits were a rarity. Pineapples, with their sweet, juicy, yellow flesh were an instant delight with gourmets, although it would take European gardeners 20 years to successfully grow them on the continent. Unlike many fruits, a pineapple must be picked ripe as its starch will not convert to sugar once it is off the plant. With slow travel times and the lack of refrigeration, a fresh pineapple was indeed a rarity, affordable only by royalty and the most wealthy of the merchant class.

After King Charles II of England posed for a portrait while holding a pineapple, the fruit gained celebrity status. The quintessential exotic fruit, pineapples were typically the centerpieces of extravagant buffets, where elaborate food displays showed both a hostess’s personality and social status. Pineapples were so much in demand that confection shops rented them out by the day to hostesses who would go to great lengths to disguise the fact that their conversation piece was rented ...