How is it possible that a fruit that is so vulgar for us, so easy to find, so despised – I think of pineapple pizza, which makes many people vomit just by reading the name – has been a symbol of prestige, wealth and even eccentricity? Originally from the Triple Border area, nature, always ignorant of the confines, created this delicious, sweet and deleterious fruit there. The name derives from the Guarani naná naná, which means “perfume of perfumes.” Fair name. Who knows thanks to which strange migrations the pineapple ended up being cultivated on the island of Guadeloupe, where Columbus tried it on his second voyage and decided to export it to Europe. And there, from then on, strange things happened.
It is told by the Dutch journalist Lex Boon, contributor to the newspaper Het Parool, in his book Ananá. Journey to the discovery of a surprising world (don’t go looking for it, it is not translated). But Columbus was known. Less known was, for example, that the first description of a pineapple was written (and drawn, also for the first time) by the Spanish Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo in the mid-16th century. Lex Boon says that Oviedo’s description seems “almost a love letter.” In Europe, pineapple was liked because it was new, a bit like kiwi was for us when it appeared at the end of the 80s, except that kiwi was never as expensive for us as it was for the European aristocrats of the 16th, 17th and 16th centuries. XVIII. The nobles paid a lot for them, too much, and in this way they demonstrated to the rest their quality of life and showed off their power. According to Lex Boon’s calculations, it would be as if today a pineapple cost more or less 7 thousand dollars. Putting such an exotic, expensive and exquisite fruit on the table made the nobleman in question get whatever he wanted; admiration, most of the time, applause and the rapid spread of all kinds of comments: if a single pineapple was placed on the table, shortly afterwards there would surely be talk that there was one on the table for each diner: people always loved to exaggerate .
Another who wrote about pineapple is the British Francesca Beauman, who dedicated another book to the fruit: The Pineapple: King of Fruits (also not translated), which says that at that time, eating a pineapple It was like today “eating a Gucci bag.” Beauman tells us that in the 18th century, for banquets, those who could not afford to buy a pineapple rented it. And those who couldn’t even do that, had it embroidered on napkins, or displayed it painted on a painting or drawn on dishes. This explains why it still mysteriously appears today at the top of the Wimbledon trophy: like the trophy, it is something that very few could enjoy.
In 1675, Charles II of England had his portrait painted by Hendrick Danckerts receiving a newly grown pineapple from the hands of the royal gardener, John Rose. Many believed the hoax, and Charles II became the first to grow pineapple in England, but according to Beauman’s reconstruction, that pineapple was also imported. From Barbados, more precisely, which was then a colony of the United Kingdom.
Lex Boon says that the idea associated with pineapple of opulence made it also appear as an architectural ornament. The best-known example is the one that appears on the top of a tower in Dunmore Park, a residence built in Scotland around 1760. Says Lex Boon: “There was no reason to have a giant, useless pineapple built in the middle of the nothing. In a way, Lord Dunmore did it simply because he could.”
Even David Copperfield, in 1850, according to Dickens, when he didn’t have a penny, he went to Covent Garden market just to look at the pineapples.