This fabulous fruit (Ananas comosus) is perhaps the most widely cultivated and loved of all tropical fruits. It is close to ubiquitous in either its fresh or canned form and has a multitude of cookery uses, be it in sweet of savoury dishes, as well as in drinks.
Pineapples are native to Central and South America. Jean de Lery made the first western discovery in the mid 16th Century while in Brazil and it is said that even earlier Christopher Columbus was presented with pineapples as he landed at Guadeloupe, an island in the French West Indies.
The fruit was introduced first to England, then later France, where the cool temperate climate required growing them in glasshouses. By the 18th Century a pineapple was a rare and expensive curio in Europe, as evidenced by a gift of the fruit given to Louis XV in 1733.
Pineapples were introduced into Australia in 1838 by Lutheran missionaries and successful crops were established first in Queensland, then later in the northern coasts of Western Australia and New South Wales. The fruit is now grown in tropical regions the world over.
Anatomy and chemistry
The pineapple has an intriguingly unique anatomy. It is not a single fruit as such, but rather a collection of closely packed berrylike structures that grow around a central stem. This stem forms the core of the pineapple.
It has been widely touted that pineapple consumption can have a positive effect on the taste of human semen (much as asparagus is said to have the reverse effect). What is less widely known is that in certain tropical Muslim regions, particularly Indonesia, the consumption of pineapples by females is discouraged due to the supposed unpleasant aroma it can impart to a woman's genitalia. Both of these are provided as anecdotal evidence and I will leave it to your own experiences to reach a conclusion.
Along with papaya, kiwifruit and figs, pineapple is rich in a protease enzyme known as bromelain. Protease enzymes break down protein and hence can cause problems for pineapple plantation workers whose hands will eventually be eaten away. They must wear heavy gloves to prevent this unpleasant outcome.
In the kitchen bromelain has the effect of causing gelatine based desserts not to set. Bromelain is destroyed at heats over 80 °C (170 ° F), so cooked pineapple is the only way to get a gelatine based mousse or bavarois to set. This enzyme can also be harnessed as a meat tenderizer. Meat, seafood and poultry that is marinated in pineapple (or indeed papaya, figs or kiwifruit) will be quite effectively tenderized. Bromelain affects mostly the exterior of the meat, so small pieces must be used for this method.
Pineapples are almost never sold by variety, but are broken down into 2 main groups. Rough and smooth according to the texture of the leaves.
A "Rough" pineapple belongs to the smaller varieties and generally posses a golden flesh that is very sweet, making them the best table variety. "Smooth" pineapples are slightly larger and have paler flesh. They do not have the sweetness of the "Roughies" and hence are often used in canning, where the syrup used will mask any tartness.
One exception: if you are lucky enough to live in Australia there is a wonderful pineapple strain that is marketed under the name Bethonga. They are sold with the leaves cropped off so as to stop competitors propagating them. The flavour of a Bethonga is simply breathtaking. All the bracing acidity of a good pineapple with intense sweetness to balance. The flesh is an impossibly deep gold
Pineapples contain no starch reserves, which means once the fruit is picked it will not get any sweeter. Pineapples must be picked well into the onset of ripening.
To determine the ripeness of a pineapple, forget about the skin colour. Some varieties are deep green when fully ripe and others are golden when still immature. Other methods are to pluck the leaves, an easily detached leaf is meant to indicate a ripe fruit, and tapping the pineapple for a solid sound. Both these methods are unreliable at best. The one failsafe method of selecting a top pineapple is to take a deep sniff. If it smells tropically sweet and intoxicatingly pineappley, you are set.