ANANAS COMOSUS

IMAGINE Columbus’s delight and astonishment when he landed in Guadeloupe in 1493 and found the natives cultivating pineapples! Here was a new food worthy of the trans-Atlantic exploration. After a couple of months of salt cod and hardtack, a pineapple must have seemed like a gift from heaven.

The pineapple originated in the lowlands of Brazil, where the Tupi Indian word for it was nana or anana, which meant “excellent fruit.” It became pineapple in English because of the fruit’s resemblance to a pine cone, and the general use of the term apple for any fruit. Although cultivated in pre-Columbian times in South America, the pineapple didn’t make it to Hawaii until Captain Cook brought it in 1777. Native Hawaiians called it halakahiki, which meant “foreign fruit.” Conditions were so right for pineapple culture on the islands that it soon became a local favorite and eventually a major crop. Hawaiian pineapples have reddish scales covering their segments, while Caribbean pineapples are greenish or yellow-green when ripe.

Botanically speaking, the pineapple is an edible, domesticated bromeliad, a tropical plant with fleshy leaves that form water-catching receptacles. The fruit is composed of from 100 to 200 berry-like fruitlets that fuse together around a central fibrous core. Pineapples contain a protein-digesting enzyme called bromelain (sometimes spelled bromelin), similar in action to the papain enzyme produced in the papaya fruit. Pineapple workers have to wear rubber gloves to prevent the enzyme from digesting the skin of their hands during constant contact. Don’t use raw pineapple in gelatin-based dishes because the bromelain will digest the gelatin’s protein and prevent jelling. Cooking deactivates the enzyme, however. Raw pineapple juice used as a marinade will tenderize meat, and if held in long contact, will cause the meat to fall apart. The bromelain in pineapple juice is thought to be a digestive aid.

THE ORGANIC FACTOR

Conventional pineapple growers typically load their soils and plants with fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, and nematocides—the last usually methyl bromide used to kill the root-destroying nematode worms in the soil, but which also destroys most other forms of life, rendering the soil an ecological wasteland. This chemical also contributes to the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere.

Now for the good news: Organic farmers are growing pineapples in Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. And pineapples respond to rich, compost-amended soils with better flavor. Look for organic pineapples in organically oriented supermarkets such as Whole Foods.

One organic pineapple farmer, Ronald Cowie on St. Thomas, told a Jamaican news service that the idea to grow pineapples organically came to him in 1999 when a friend offered him a slice of pineapple that was grown without chemicals in his kitchen garden. The fruit, which normally irritates his mouth, posed no such problem on that occasion, according to the report. He makes compost from vegetable waste and manure from his rabbit farm. For pest control, he sprays his crops with the fiery juice he extracts from bird peppers.

Other organic growers report success using mycorrhizal fungi spores in the planting holes. These fungi colonize plant roots in a symbiosis whereby the fungus extends its hair-like filaments far into the soil to gather phosphorus and other nutrients and feed them to the plant. The plant in turn produces root exudates—think sugary syrup—that the fungus uses for food. Thus both plant and fungus are healthier for the partnership.  ....read more