There’s also a bioengineered pineapple called Rosé or Pink Glow, named for its pink flesh. So if you get a chance to taste a locally grown abacaxi pineapple in Florida, the Bahamas, or Brazil, savor the opportunity. Queen pineapples are eaten fresh only, and are the most commonly grown cultivar in Malaysia, Australia, and South Africa.Īccording to many aficionados, Abacaxi pineapples are one of the most delicious varieties but are hard to grow at scale. They don’t can well and are best when fresh. Red Spanish pineapples are rounder, more aromatic, and tastier than Smooth Cayennes. If you buy canned pineapple, it’s almost certainly from the Smooth Cayenne. The Smooth Cayenne is the most widely cultivated variety, making up about 70% of all harvested pineapple, and roughly 90% of the processed pineapple in the world. Pineapples come in four main classes, or cultivars. These days, the biggest pineapple-producing regions include South and Central America, Southeast Asia, and India. By the time Europeans arrived, the pineapple was already a staple crop in many indigenous diets. Its wild progenitor originated somewhere around Brazil and Paraguay - the Mayan and Aztecs domesticated and cultivated it starting around 3,000 years ago. So, is pineapple a berry? Yes, pineapples are a type of berry fruit called a collective or multiple fruit, which refers to the way the berries fuse together to form the pineapple fruit. Contrary to popular belief, pineapples don’t grow on trees they are actually part of the bromeliad family.Ī perennial in its native lands, the pineapple plant produces clusters of fruit that coalesce into a single pineapple. The pineapple plant, Ananas comosus, is a fairly short shrub, seldom growing as high as five feet. Aside from the meaning of pineapple being linked to hospitality, as well as their association with tropical beach vacations and housing for SpongeBob SquarePants, pineapples have gained favor as a health food, and are particularly celebrated for their anti-inflammatory effects. Pineapples are a distinctive-looking tropical fruit indigenous to South America. Plus, you’ll learn some fun facts about pineapples along the way. In this article, we’ll examine the origin of pineapple, its nutritional profile, assess its benefits and risks, and see if it’s possible to consume the fruit in a way that’s good for you and the planet. But the issues of wealth and power that swirled around the earliest colonial exploits still haunt the fruit to this day. While the pineapple is unquestionably an attractive fruit (and often referred to as the “King of Fruits”), these days we’re more likely to encounter it in smoothies, fruit salads, and cocktails than in stone follies or rotting table decorations. Instead, they used them as centerpieces at fancy dinner parties, over and over again, until they began to rot. Given the effort and expense required to grow a pineapple in the chilly Caledonian lowlands, it was rare for Murray’s family and guests to actually eat one. His pineapple growing hothouse, built into a garden wall in his ancestral Scottish home, Dunmore Park, was topped with a stone cupola in the likeness of - can you guess? - a giant, 46-foot-high pineapple. After that, the ability to produce a pineapple became a clear indication of tremendous wealth. How do you show your fellow nobles just how rich and powerful you are? John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, did it with a pineapple.Įuropeans had been fascinated by the fruit since Columbus first encountered it in the tropical lands he despoiled for crown and country, but couldn’t figure out how to grow one until the Dutch invented greenhouses in the 1680s. You’re an 18th-century British aristocrat.
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