Pineapples

Pineapples
© Denzil Green

Name		Description
Smooth Cayenne		Weighs up to 6 pounds (2.5 kg); yellow or pale yellow inside; high in sugar and acid. Grown in Hawaii, type most often found in North American grocery stores.
Kona Sugarloaf		Weighs up to 5 pounds (2 kg) ; white flesh inside, quite sweet; cylindrical.
Perambuco		Weighs 2 to 4 pounds (1 to 2 kg) ; fruit inside is either white or pale yellow.
Red Spanish		Weighs 2 to 4 pounds (1 to 2 kg); reddish shell, yellow fruit inside, more square shaped. As the fruit ripens, the reddish colour of the rind fades from red to pink. Discovered growing wild amongst coffee plants in Ethiopia. Aka Spanish Red.
Natal Queen		Weighs up to 2 pounds (1 kg); yellow inside, medium sweetness, milder taste.

Canned Pineapple
© Denzil Green

Some, however, dislike the taste of pineapple, or have an allergic reaction to it. And sometimes, you get caught cooking in the middle of bad weather and just don't want to make a trek out to the store for it.

For pineapple juice, you can try substituting : sweetened grapefruit juice, orange juice on its own, orange juice with some lemon or apple juice, orange juice with some guava juice or rum (to maintain an "island" flavour), etc.

For crushed pineapple, you can try chopped, canned peaches with some orange or lemon juice stirred in to give them a citrus zing. Orange pieces are sometimes suggested, but they can end up too stringy in what you are making.

If you can find a Pineapple Flavoring syrup, essence or oil that you are not allergic to, you can add some of that to either of the above substitutes.

There are recipes for "Crushed Pineapple Substitute" based on shredded zucchini, but they all seem to call for large amounts of pineapple juice which won't help allergy sufferers.

Try instead simmering some coarsely-grated or chopped zucchini in a mixture of white sugar, orange juice and a small amount of lemon juice. Grate up as much zucchini as you think you need, and put in a pot. For the simmering liquid, use a ratio of about 1 cup (8 oz / 250 ml) orange juice, 2 to 3 tbsp lemon juice, 3/4 cup (6 oz / 170g) white sugar. (Optional: add a few drops of Pineapple Flavouring if you can find it, and don't react to it.) Make up enough liquid to cover the grated zucchini in your pot. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. If the mixture starts to go dry, tip in a bit more lemon juice. Remove from heat and let cool. Use in recipe in same quantity as the crushed pineapple was called for. Leftover can be frozen.

Some people have an allergy, known as Oral Allergy Syndrome, to fruits such as pineapple, kiwi, banana, some citrus fruit, etc.

1 x 8 oz (250 ml) can of chunked or crushed Pineapple = 3/4 cup (6 oz / 170g) of fruit, 1/4 (2 oz / 4 tablespoons) cup of juice
1 x 20 oz (600 ml) can of chunked or crushed pineapple = 2 cups (16 oz / 450g) of fruit, 1/2 cup (4 oz / 125 ml) of juice
1 cup chunked Pineapple, drained = 8 oz (225g) of fruit
1 x 29 oz (850 ml) can chunked or crushed Pineapple = 3 3/4 cups
1 x 20 oz (600 ml) can of sliced Pineapple =10 slices
1 x 8 (250 ml) oz can of sliced Pineapple = 4 slices
1/2 cup of canned, drained Pineapple pieces or chunks = 3 1/2 oz = 100g
2 slices of canned, drained Pineapple = 2 oz = 50g
1/2 cup fresh, peeled and cored Pineapple, cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) pieces = 2 1/2 oz = 70g

Don't wrap cut Pineapple in tin foil or store it in anything metallic owing to its high acidity. Store leftover fresh Pineapple or opened tinned Pineapple in a plastic container in the refrigerator; use within 4 days. You can also freeze leftover Pineapple; it will be mooshy when you thaw it so use it where appearance won't be a concern -- blender drinks, in a cake or muffins, etc.

You can freeze fresh Pineapple. Peel and chunk it. Squeeze the peel into a cup or over a plate to get the juice out. Pack the fruit in a freezer container or bag, cover with the juice, and freeze. Use another juice if you haven't got enough juice or have already chucked the Pineapple peel into the compost.

Tinned Pineapple can be kept unopened on your shelf for up to a year. Dole is one of the few manufacturers around who actually bothers to put best before dates on their tins, which makes safe storage really easy. Whenever you open a tin of Pineapple, be aware that it is a highly acidic fruit and check the inside of the tin to make sure there are no corrosion marks. If there are, pitch it all (depending on when you bought it, you might even march it back to the store!)

Once opened, don't throw the juice away: store any leftover fruit in the fridge for up to a week covered with the juice, or use the juice for something else -- you can freeze the juice in a small plastic container and work it later into a cake, muffin or bread recipe, swapping out some other liquid such as water for the tastier Pineapple juice.

Dried Pineapple
© Denzil Green

He brought Pineapples back to Europe, where they were a hit. But it wasn't until the late 1600s that Europeans managed to get them to grow in hothouses. So in the meantime, these sweet, exotic fruit were the stuff of wonder and delight in the 1500s and 1600s. The Pineapple forms were reproduced in architecture everywhere, and became familiar on the tops of gate posts, etc. If you've ever wandered through renaissance Florence, you will see the Pineapple motif all over the place. In the early 1600s, King Charles II was even painted receiving a Pineapple as a gift -- clearly a gift fit for a King.

Spanish sailors working in the New World had it easier. They could get fresh Pineapple for free, and did. They noticed that eating Pineapple warded off scurvy (though they didn't know that it was the vitamin C in the fruit that did the trick), so they carried Pineapple with them on their journeys. But tragedies for them -- shipwrecks and bad storms washing things overboard -- were a future blessing for others, as Pineapples from their ships washed ashore and established themselves on Caribbean Islands.

Soon, the Caribbean Islands were exporting Pineapples to Europe, and especially, up to America. Fresh, whole Pineapples were so highly desired by fashionable colonial hostesses in Boston and New York for display on their tables that often times they were only able to rent them for the day. Pineapples appeared everywhere in Colonial decoration to symbolize sophisticated, no-expense spared hospitality.

In 1885 (some sources say 13 June 1884), a Brit named John Kidwell imported a Cayenne Pineapple from Madeira to Hawaii, began growing it there, and within a few years he had successfully canned Pineapple for export to the United States. It wasn't a commercial success, though, as Hawaii was still independent then and its produce was subject to high import tariffs in the US, so he folded his business by 1898. That same year, however, Hawaii was annexed to the United States, removing the tariffs. In that year, two men came to Hawaii with the Pineapple business in mind: Alfred W. Eames, whose company is today known as Del Monte, and James Drummond Dole, whose company is now Dole. (James's cousin, Sanford B. Dole, would become president in 1894 of the brief Hawaiian Republic).

Pineapple was first canned for commercial sale in 1903, by James Dole in Wahiawa, Hawaii. Henry G. Ginaca (1876 - 1918) was hired in 1911 by James Dole to come up with a machine that would enable more efficient canning of Pineapple. At the time, Pineapples were processed by a combination of hand and manual coring machines, yielding a production rate of about 10 to 15 Pineapples being processed per minute. The machine that Ginaca came up with in 1911 raised that rate to 50 per minute, with far less wastage of juice and far less accidentally crushed fruit. The machine wasn't fully put into production, though, until 1919, during which time refinements were tested. The 1919 model allowed 65 pineapples per minute. By the 1990s, the machines in use could process between 75 and 100 pineapples per minute. They are still all called "Ginaca" machines, though, in honour of their inventor.

By the 1990s, however, pineapple growing started to leave Hawaii, as producers found cheaper places in the world to grow or source their pineapples.

In 1992, the Dole company shuttered their pineapple plantation on Lanai island; James Dole had purchased the entire island in 1922 for growing pineapples.

In 2008, Del Monte stopped growing its pineapples in Hawaii, saying that it had become cheaper to grow its pineapples in other parts of the world. Their plantation was at Kunia on Oahu Island. Del Monte, headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida, had started growing pineapples there in 1916, under the company name of California Packing Corporation. [1]

In 2009, Maui Land & Pineapple Company stopped growing pineapples in Hawaii. Their plantation was on Maui island, where they had been since the company was founded as the Maui Pineapple Co. in 1912. [2]

As of 2010, Dole remains the sole producer of pineapple in Hawaii. It has 2,700 acres in Wahiawa on Oahu Island. The company was founded in Wahiawa in 1851.

"The Natal and Eleuthera pineapples were brought to this country from the tropics a few short years ago and are quite a different fruit from the usual pineapples around the stores. Not so different in appearance; different in the eating. These never bite the tongue, but are sweet and mellow. No need to add sugar. The entire fruit is edible, even the core. Juice runs when the knife cuts in." -- Paddleford, Clementine (1898 - 1967). Food Flashes Column. Gourmet Magazine. March 1950.

Columbus and his crew drew on the Pineapple's resemblance to pine cones when they called it "Pine of the Indies". The English later tacked "apple" onto pine, to give it associations with an already loved fruit.

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