Glorious Golden Flesh

...of the pineapple. Rather excited about an upcoming book found here: King of Fruits. Those that personally know me realize that the pineapple is indeed near and dear to my heart and is certainly a king among fruits. Tip to Brad DeLong for the info.

DeLong cites some interesting material from the London Times Literary Supplement. I quote as well:

Locke’s choice of the pineapple to make his point was not random. In a sense, the structure of his argument would have worked just as well had he chosen apples instead of pineapples. But who in England in the 1670s was not acquainted with the particular “relish” of an apple? The pineapple, by contrast, was the ultimate in inaccessible luxury fruit. Unless you were close to royalty, or a traveller to the West Indies, you were very unlikely to have been anywhere near one. Moreover, those who had tasted its yellow flesh, described it as peculiarly complex and elusive. Richard Ligon, in a history of the Caribbean, claimed that “nothing of rare taste can be thought on that is not there”. Some thought it musky. Others thought it combined all that is “most delicate in the Peach, the Strawberry, the Muscadine Grape and the Pippin”. John Evelyn, the courtier and salad expert, disagreed. When he tasted chunks of pineapple cut up by the King himself in 1668, he felt the flavour fell short of the “ravishing” descriptions he had read, having a “grateful acidity” but tasting more of “the Quince and the Melon” than anything more delicious. This illustrates Locke’s argument. The earliest European tasters of pineapple could only describe it by reference to other fruits. They could not summon up its full flavour either in words, or in the mouths of others.

The taste of pineapple, however, is only a part of its charm, as Fran Beauman’s engaging “biography” of the fruit amply shows (for once, the application of “biography” to an inanimate object seems justified). As soon as they saw it, men were wowed by the pineapple’s looks, its mathematically perfect golden shell and its
outrageous green spikes. In 1535 the Spanish writer Oviedo confessed, “I do not suppose there is in the whole world any other [fruit] of so exquisite and lovely appearance”.

The fruit is rather wonderful, I must say. The book recounts the rise and fall and re-ascendence of the pineapple. Can't wait to get my hands on this one.