April 15, 2021 • 52 mins
As the pineapple craze swept through Europe's upper class, aristocrats worked tirelessly to grow their own pineapples. This was no small feat, since pineapples aren't suited to the European climate. Still, some clever inventors and gardeners figured it out -- and, along the way, non-aristocrats also got into the trend. Since most people couldn't afford a pineapple, they did the next best thing and rented them as a display of status for dinner parties and important gatherings. Tune in to learn more in the second part of this two-part series.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. For fans of Lost, the
television show, you might enjoy this previously on Ridiculous History.
This is This is part two of our episode on
King Pine a k a. The Pineapple a k a.
(00:49):
One of our favorite fruits on the show. Shout out
to super producer Casey Pegram, guest producer Andrew Howard. They
called me, they called me Ben or the Pineapple Kid.
I'm going by that. No, no, the Pineapple Kid. I
like that. You should rob a bank. It's probably you
have probably had to capitalize on this whole mask wearing situation.
(01:12):
It's not gonna be around for terribly much longer, hopefully,
and rob a bank. I'm surprised there haven't been more
like wild West style heists. You know, everyone would just
blend right in, you just walk right out of the street,
and I would know I did. Uh. I did a
video for brain Stuff back in the day about the
economics of robbing a bank. It's pretty depressing. I talked
(01:32):
about this. Yeah, yeah, you don't make much. You don't
make much money. Per heist. It's uh, it's not the
best business to be in. So bank robbing now it
would be like kind of like spoken word, you gotta
be in it for the experience. Well that's what that's
what you gotta do. Like you gotta think bigger Ben,
you got just Robert Bank. You gotta like do on
(01:53):
Ocean's eleven style casino hist or robbed like the Museum
of Natural History steal the Declaration of Independence. That be
a good ridiculous history style heist. Yeah, yeah, Now heist
in a museum I'm on board with. And of course
I'm sure there's some folks in the audience today, Noel
who are remembering that old quote, if you really want
(02:14):
to make money, don't rob a bank, start one or
something like that, if you really want to rob people.
I can't remember, but what we can remember is our
earlier episode on the mania for pineapples that swept Europe
right in the fifteen through sixteenth century. Specifically, I think
(02:37):
we were both surprised to learn that the pineapple at
one time in Europe costs the equivalent of eight thousand
dollars each today, right, that was the number I think insane.
I mean truly. Even the royals would look at it
as an absolute delicacy, a treat only for the most
(02:57):
special of occasions. Uh, you're right, it's ingle fruit was
worth thousands of pounds. As we know, pounds have always
been more than a dollar. Yeah, so I think the
number you said nails it, um. But these things were well, remember,
let's just backtrack, ever so slightly previously on ridiculous history.
You know, it all started with one pineapple. I was
(03:18):
talking to some friends last night about how, you know,
just that one pineapple made it, and they're like, well,
how did it keep from getting too ripe? And that's
exactly right. The other ones that that came across, you know,
on that journey with Columbus, clearly we're already too ripe
in the first place and just rotted and became the
sticky morass of goo. And I'm imagining that the one
(03:38):
that made it was probably really green or unripe, you know.
And then it like took the time of that voyage
to ripen because I was a big dommy and I
was little way at ice. Right, No, they didn't have ice.
He had to go like the Arctic circle to get ice.
So the best they could do is keep them in
a cool, dry place, which would have been the you know,
the hold of the ship. But yeah, that one pineapple
(03:58):
started this whole pineap apple craze because King Ferdinand of
Spain went absolutely bonkers for it, and the idea of
having a pineapple that was about the best anyone could
hope for. And they would get like traded around, paraded
down the streets for events and things like that, and
it got to the point where there became this whole,
like weird side hustle behind pineapples, had nothing to do
(04:22):
with cooking or eating or fruit or anything. Yes, so
we see this happen often in the world of luxury
goods and material flexes. Something starts out and the upper
echelons of society that's where it becomes cool, right and desirable,
and then people in lower rungs of society, right like
(04:45):
well to do merchants, for instance, learn about the upper
classes love of a specific thing, and they say, well,
I want to get in on the party. I want
a Rolex Rolls Royce or a pine apple. I think
those are the examples we used earlier, And that's exactly
what happens here. There was this crazy hectic trade in pineapples,
(05:08):
but not selling pineapples, because a lot of people couldn't
afford to own a pineapple. Uh. Instead, the trade centered
on renting pineapples. That's that's what we're gonna talk about today.
We're gonna see how this came to be. When last
we left off with the Saga of the pineapple, Europeans
were trying, without much luck, to grow the fruit themselves.
(05:32):
Pineapples need a tropical environment, and Europe is famously mostly
not a tropical place. But there's there is something interesting.
In the hundreds, some folks in England figured out how
to grow a pineapple. And that might sound wild to
anybody who's familiar with British weather, right famously gray, and
(05:56):
there's a stereotype of it being bleak and dreary and
so on. But it appears that some people in England
actually pulled it off. They had to be gardeners that
were either very very wealthy already or very very good
at garden. Yes. And the man that may have possessed
one or both of those, uh certain sets of skills
(06:18):
was this guy named John Rose, who is often incorrectly
connected with growing the very first pineapple in England. Because
there's a painting by Charles the Second Um, which he
commissioned in sixteen, which shows John Rose presenting the King
with this, you know, prized homegrown pineapple. But it turns
(06:43):
out that as often as the case in these sorts
of paintings depicting some sort of ceremonial pomp and circumstances
type thing, um, the narrative is a little bit forced.
The pineapple that is in the painting, which was in
fact based on a real thing that happened, was one
that was imported from the Bahamas and then ripened in
(07:05):
England by Rose. Oh and here here's why those pineapples
survived the journey at all. I was thinking about this
after we recorded Episode one. A pineapple takes about twenty
eight months to grow and then another six months to ripen,
so you've got a pretty long runway there. Okay, Well,
(07:26):
I just have to say I'm not trying to nag
our guy John Rose here, but doesn't letting a pineapple
ripen just mean like leaving it alone and doing nothing? Well,
it's funny. A lot of it would depend on whether
or not he had one of my new favorite fancy
buildings and orange jury, why not? Why not? Why not
(07:47):
a pineapple a toorium or a pineapple areum or dome
Because it started with oranges makes sense. So I like
a pineapple aream, I like that rolls off the tongue,
but an orange is exactly what it sounds like. These
were buildings that were you'd usually find on wealthy, kind
(08:09):
of trendy estates, and they existed entirely to be citrus
fruit greenhouses. They would protect citrus fruits from frost and
snow during the winter months. But the issue with orangeries,
according to Johanna Lawson Higgins from the Royal Botanical Garden
(08:30):
in Edinburgh, the problem with them is that even these
custom built buildings did not provide enough heat and light
for the pineapple, and that's why it wasn't until seventeen fourteen,
maybe seventeen sixteen, when one gardener, a Dutchman named Henry Talende,
was able to grow a pineapple in England for his boss,
(08:53):
Matthew Decker. And Matthew Decker was so excited about this
that he commissioned a painting and like in seventeen twenty
years later, he says, you know what we need a
painting of Henry growing that pineapple. But you know, um,
being of the wealthy class, who knows, he may have
made it look like he grew the pineapple himself. H exactly.
(09:18):
Looks can be deceiving, especially when they're committed in like
really high quality you know, bespoke oil paintings. And this guy,
I mean, he really does deserve props are coming up
with what was ultimately a very elaborate method that involved
so many variables and keeping them, you know, balanced perfectly.
Soil temperature had to be maintained at the exact correct temperature. Um,
(09:40):
he designed these hot houses, which is I think it's
the same as a greenhouse spend, but I hope any
botanists out there let us know. But they had these
pits that were lined with pebbles, and on top of
the pebbles, he had manure Nature's fertilizer or you know,
just fertilizer sat on a bed of this bark called
(10:04):
Tanner's bark, which is oak bark that's soaked in water.
So he thought all this through really really specifically. Then
there's more. Then he had a pot that contained the
like you know, like a pot of soil that contained
the pineapple plant. But here's the thing. Manure wasn't enough.
It it actually created a lot of heat in the
(10:27):
early stages of experimentation. That's why he needed the bark
to come in and regulate the heat over time though
the wet soaked oak bark, and it would keep the
temperature of the soil at this exact right range that
kind of mimicked that you would find in these more
tropical regions. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, it's
(10:47):
kind of like keeping tropical fish or an octopus, you
know what I mean, or a you know, a saltwater
fish of some sort. They need these very specific environmental conditions.
I do want to say hothouse and greenhouse are used interchangeably.
There's one big difference though, I think technically a greenhouse
is only warmed by the sun, but a hothouse uses
(11:10):
these other methods like maybe the uh the chemical reactions
of manure or furnaces, stuff like that to heat the
produce of the plants inside. And they tried a couple
of different approaches to UH to grow pineapples in England.
Salinda's method, while involved, is pretty impressive. It's got a
(11:33):
mcgeiver vibe. But it was also pretty expensive. A lot
of people tried to get in the pineapple game by
building what they called pine eery's. Personally, I like pineapple
aream but you know, they didn't ask us at the time.
A lot of people are in this game, and it
grew very expensive. The Gentleman's magazine of seventeen sixty four
(11:56):
estimated it would cost you a hundred and fifty pounds
the equivalent of twenty eight thousand pounds today to build
a hothouse to cover your maintenance cost. Operation costs to
buy the pineapple plants themselves, and it was pretty risky
because you weren't guaranteed to get a return on your investment.
(12:17):
And also a lot of people accidentally killed their pineapples
because of the ways they tried to heat them. Right,
uh and and I don't know then, would you consider
this an operation that quickly was able to you know
what they say in the corporate world scale, you know
what I mean, like or or would you know that
would be really expensive operation? Right? Yeah, And it's a
(12:40):
long term investment, so it will take several years for
the pineapple fruit to bloom if you don't kill it,
and then of course they will take another six months
to ripen. People killed their pineapples pretty often. Actually, they
tried to heat some of these glasshouses with furnaces that
were in side the building, but the fumes from the
(13:02):
furnaces would kill or damage the plants. And then they
tried firewalls, which sound cool. Uh, the the idea is, well,
they sound hot. Right there we go out of the
ideas that hot hot. You would get a stove or
furnace and you would use the hot air rising from
that to like run along the wall to heat the
(13:25):
wall of the hot house or the pinery. But the
problem was you needed someone constantly they're stirring the coal
stoke in the So the term firewall started with that
and not necessarily a safety barrier and buildings that would
prevent fired from burning through a wall or did I
make that use of the term up entire Obviously it
(13:46):
also is a computer internet safety thing, But I always
think of a firewall as being a buildings you know,
code spec type thing that that keeps fires from like
penetrating from one portion of the building to the other
sort of does the compartments and the Titanic that like
totally didn't work. Yeah, that's correct, that's that's the that's
where the computing term firewall comes from. These are these
(14:11):
are just something different. These are just hot balls. That's
so cool though. I love that. I love it. It
reminds me of sort of the way the term pineapple
itself with kind of bastardized and flipped around and they're like, Okay,
now it's gonna be this thing. Uh, the English language.
It's like you always say, Ben, it's a it's a
living language. Indeed, So okay, costly, complicated, difficult to scale upfront, right,
(14:36):
is it worth it? You know? Is it worth the
difference between trying this elaborate you know, plan to grow
them domestically versus just importing them, because, like you said,
there's a pretty big window. Yeah. Yeah, But if everything
goes well, if you can figure out a heating and
maintenance method that you can keep up long enough, then
(14:57):
you are going to end up being pineapple tycoon. At
this point, hope grown pineapple will sell for the equivalent
of eleven thousand pounds today, so it's even more expensive
that it wasn't when Ferdinand was first nothing on pineapples,
and I thought I thought this was funny. This reminds
(15:19):
me of organic farmers markets. The pineapples were even more
desirable if they still had shoots and leaves on them,
because then you would know that some some aristocrat had
grown them there in Europe, so you would be you
would be like, okay, so that's so wait a minute,
(15:41):
wait minute. So the domestic pineapple became even more value
than the imported pineapple. It's a more of a flex
because you know, you would be like, wait, why would
I wait for a pineapple to ship with sailors across
the Atlantic when I could simply buy something from Earl
of Sadwich. Odd Wade didn't shy, are you? I don't know,
(16:04):
I get it's it's already. It's already kind of a weird, impulsive,
you know, opulent thing, which usually involves a little bit
of instant gratification. Right. You know, you don't wanna have
to wait for your like fancy thing to make you
feel all, you know big, You want to right now
for that dopamine hit. Yeah, exactly, And this is there's
(16:27):
a funny passage in Pineapple, a Global History by an
anthropologist named cal Y O'Connor where they talk about this, Uh,
they talk about this weird decision A lot of possessors
of pineapple had to face. Are you going to display
it to let people know how well off you are
(16:47):
or are you gonna fold to your curiosity and eat
the fruit yourself. M This was a dilemma for people
because even if you're really wealthy in Europe at the time,
you know, you wouldn't casually be buying a pineapple no
matter who you are. It's it's a pretty significant investment.
And yeah, they taste great, but if you eat it,
(17:10):
you no longer have that flex. Yes, it actually became
almost more popular to display, like think of like the
the the most you know, all of the still lives
and you know, fruit paintings of the time, and before
you know, the pineapple is the most kind of arresting
and uh, you know, unique looking of all of those,
and often is the centerpiece of those kinds of displays.
(17:33):
And it makes sense because it's quite large, so it
did everything kind of crowds around it because it is
in fact the king of the fruits, in the same
way that Godzilla is arguably the king of the monsters.
I'm I'm more of a calm guy how about you
been uh, you know, I enjoy all Kaiju and one
of the few people who thought Pacific Rim was great.
(17:53):
What are you talking about? It was fantastic. I love this.
I love Pacific Rim. I didn't think that was a
controversial opinion. Oh yeah, I think the studios sank it,
but it did so well in the Chinese market that
it managed to get a sequel. I don't think Pacific
Rim three is coming out, but there is a new anime,
Pacific Rim Black, on Netflix, so check it out if
(18:16):
you like. If you like me love Giant Robots and Kaiju,
I don't know, man, calm Godzilla, They've both got there.
Did you see the new one? I did, and I
don't know. You know, it's easy to rag on anything
like that is just big, dumb, fun popcorn, you know, nonsense.
But I quite enjoyed it. Be I did not care
for the previous one, King of the Monsters, because it
(18:38):
was so focused on the kind of boring interpersonal relationships
between the human characters, and they kind of dispensed with
that entirely and gave us the monster. Like the one
of the shows that I've watched on YouTube, red letter Media,
these dudes do movie reviews and the show called half
in the Bag. That's fantastic. They described it as like
a really expensive version of like a six year old
(19:00):
hanging as action figures together, you know, in the bathtub
or something. And I was here for it. How about you? Yeah? Same?
Of course, folks who know about the other show that
we do stuff they want you to know. You can imagine.
I had some complicated feelings when I saw that one
of the main characters is a conspiracy theory podcaster, and
(19:25):
I was like, oh man, I'm thinking there za, guys.
But I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons.
It's just a childlike thrill, and people found pineapples also thrilling.
It hit them emotionally in a way that other fruits
didn't because of a very simple fact. It was almost
(19:51):
impossible for the average person to get their hands on
a pineapple, but the literary world was filled with these
crazy descriptions, some a little bit erotic, of how the
pineapple tasted like you would you could easily go your
entire life without tasting a pineapple, but reading something new
(20:14):
every week about how amazing it was, and this just
made people more hungry. On several levels for a pineapple
and one other people know you had access to it.
And that's where we see the rise of pineapple as decoration.
I mentioned before the you know, the entrance of some
(20:35):
fancy buildings having pineapples depicted in masonry, or when you
go into some old hotels you'll see a pineapple for
something like just the painting of a pineapple. I love
hotel paintings, man, it's so weird. There's something to them.
You're right, And it turns out actually not to blow
I'm not gonna name name it, but a colleague of ours,
his partner um that is, her job is to curate
(20:58):
hotel paintings. So there's definitely like somebody think putting some
thought into it. I think it depends on the type
of hotel, perhaps the number of stars that it has,
as to the tastefulness of said paintings. But I think
the ones you're talking about, Ben are the ones that
are real bargain basement and you're like, who did this
and where did this come from? And why is this here?
It's probably like you know, a sailboat, a single sailboat
(21:20):
on a placid c or something like that. Yeah, or like,
you know, a sad clown. Oh god, really you've seen
you've seen sad clowns, and that's that would be triggering
for so many people. I know. Yeah, I'm thinking of this.
Uh this really creepy casino. I ended up in Vegas
one time when I was at ce suh, the Consumer
(21:42):
Electronics showcase, which was a circus circus. Surely it was
circus circus if it had clown theme. Yeah, I think
it was. I think that's a creepy man. I I
enjoyed it. But anyway, anyway, decorations, people want you to
know that, unlike the pores, they have a pineapple. Uh.
So the Landed aristocracy is in kind of this, keeping
(22:05):
up with the Jones's arms race of living a big life, right,
gambling and and boozing, and then also cultivating pineapple with
around the clock care and these custom built pine earys
tons of cold to keep the temperature right. The cost
of rearing each one was equivalent to eight thousand dollars
(22:28):
which is probably why the price went up to eleven
thousand later. Wow, like if through the life of the
pineapple eight grand per apple. Yes, yes, that's wild, because
this seems unsustainable this seems like a bubble, you know,
like the like the tulip craze, you know something. Yeah,
(22:48):
it's I mean think about they're creating an environment that
does not naturally exist in this part of the world.
It's also not good for literally anything else. So it's
so it comes so very expensive that eventually even the
aristocrats are saying, you know, it's tremendously wasteful to grow
(23:09):
one of these pineapples and simply eat them. Then you
have new pineapples salt. And that's why they became dinner
time decorations. You would just you would like go to
a fancy dinner and you would see you would see
a pineapple in the middle of like this very opulent
fruit plate and the pineapples in the middle because you're
(23:31):
not supposed to eat it. You're just supposed to look
at it while you eat cheaper fruit. And then I
guess you say to the host, oh, wow, you do
have a pineapple dope, and they're like, they're like, what's
it tastes like? And they're like, I don't know, I'm
not going to eat it. This was eleven grand oh no,
And it's interesting. Then you point out the gestation period,
let's just call it. It's totally not the right science
(23:52):
through at all, But for how long it takes for
the thing to ripen? Right, So that gives you a
pretty long window of displaying it. But at what point
in that does it always look the same? Is it green?
Does it go from like green to I mean, honestly,
even a right pineapple is sort of green on the outside. Um,
I wonder how long how long do you think you
have with this prize possession? And if it's just getting
(24:16):
there at the tail end or okay, this is about
to go. I've gotten three months of display out of it,
and now it's time to crack it open and take
a bite. Well, nowadays, if you look at the modern
pineapple expiration date, it's pretty crazy. A whole pineapple will
last two to three days on the counter the day. Okay,
(24:39):
But again I gotta pose this question, what does it
look like when it's at the beginning of that six
month ripening period that we're talking about. It has to
look different, right, Yeah, yeah, it'll it'll look different like
getting fruit. The appearance will change over time. Obviously, people
were keeping these pineapples for much longer than two to
three days because they two of three days is the
(25:01):
window in which you can eat it and it will
still taste fresh. But again they're not eating it, so
they're they are riding this horse to the ground, by
which I mean they're going to have that pineapple out
there for as long as possible, even if it's rotting,
because it's not as though someone is going to eat it.
(25:22):
This craze, by the way, it took off in the
American colonies as well. They were imported from the Caribbean
islands and they were still really expensive because you would
think maybe pineapples would be cheaper, right because the colonies
are closer. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The colonists would
display pineapples as well, but when they're started going rotten,
(25:44):
they would eat them. Right. See, there we go, we're
speaking the same language. Um. But but even there's where
like around eight k you know for one of these,
it was very close to the prices in England. Yeah,
which is nuts. And now we have to reveal just
how crazy this got. Nol. What's up with the pineapple
(26:05):
rental markets? Uh huh yeah, I mean, you know, how
how much time do you want? Then? I know it's
one of your big things. We talked about it a lot.
I've got a beautiful, beautiful fruit. I will rent you
for let's call it a hundred bucks a day. Alright,
do I need insurance or well, you can protect your
(26:28):
you know, you can get rental insurance for an extra
ten okay, because I'm going on a date and I
just really want to flex. Yeah, but don't drop it, ben,
and definitely don't eat it. This is like a you know, look,
but but don't eat situation. Got it? One ten doesn't
seem that bad now? By again, by today's then you
can buy your own pineapple. But you don't need me.
(26:49):
I have an antiquated business I have actually I have
been outpaced by history. Um. I really should have thought
this business model through, but act then. It was a
great business model because you know, it was like the
Blockbuster video model, you know, where you could just uh,
you know, get a bunch of pineapples and instead of
selling them and having a one time payout, you keep
(27:13):
cycling them through and renting them to people. Um. And
it became a pretty lucrative trade, the pineapple rental market.
There's so much status wrapped up in these um people
wanted to get in on the party at the very least,
they wanted to appear as if they were in on
the party. Um, so they might just rent a pineapple
(27:35):
for a night for a dinner soiree, you know, to
use for that centerpiece on the table, and that you know,
would be enough nominal, enough of a fee they could
afford it. They could feel like they, you know, we're somehow,
you know, keeping up with the Jones. It's the same
as people that like buy luxury clothing items when they
(27:56):
just really don't make enough money to do that to
justify ending two hundred dollars on a on a Gucci
shirt or whatever. That's probably low, but they feel so
you know, pressured by society and by the people they
follow on social media and all this stuff. Sorry, I'm
soapboxing here a little bit that they'll like, you know,
overspend and spend out of their means to get this stuff.
(28:17):
Not saying people shouldn't have what they want and feel
good about the clothing that they have and if that's
what you're into the fashion and stuff, but I think
a lot of it is pressure. And this is definitely
what this is when you say pressure to keep up
and and and to you know, fight that those feelings
of jealousy. Yeah right, Like I was saying earlier, it's
like an arms race to keep up with the Joneses.
But to the point about designer fashion, this this led
(28:41):
me down an interesting rabbit hole because I was wondering
whether some unscrupulous merchant did the same thing that many
merchants do in the modern day, which is to make knockoffs,
was their counterfeit pineapple market. I to me, that's really
interesting because has so many people who saw pineapples wouldn't
(29:03):
have seen them in person. It would have heard about
them and seen paintings, right or drawings. So I bet
there was somebody selling fake pineapples the same way people sell,
you know, knockoff supreme gear or something. But this also
leads us to another funny thing. Well, the funny thing
that turns pretty dark pretty quickly. This means that for
(29:25):
a lot of people who could actually afford to buy pineapples,
they were buying pineapples used because these things have been
rented out for several days beforehand. Right, and now you
get this used pineapple, who knows how many people have
touched it? The maids would transport pineapples from dinner party
(29:45):
to dinner party were also incredibly lucrative targets for thieves,
so they had to be very, very careful. We know
that pineapples became a source of crime in eighteen o seven.
There are several cases for pineapple theft. One guy was
(30:07):
sentenced to something called transportation, which is way less cool
than it sounds. It was basically exiled to Australia for
seven years for stealing seven pineapples. It's so funny, Ben,
So I had to had to bring this up really quickly,
the idea of, you know, comparing the luxury clothing situation
(30:27):
to this pineapple situation. I don't know if you're a
fan of the show Parks and Recreation, Ben, but a
Z's and Sorry's character Tom Haverford UM is always pitching
these like bad business ideas, and the one that he
does that actually sort of takes off is a company
called rent a Swag where you are able to rent
(30:47):
luxury clothing, you know, for a period of time and
then return it. Uh. And I was looking it up
and I found an article that talked about these two
um actual Silicon Valley startups. One's called Lottote and I
believe they've advertised with us on different podcasts UM and
another one called counter Squad or sorry couldtur Squad, and
they essentially allow you to rotate outfits through each month
(31:11):
and then send them back and then they build themselves
into Netflix for clothes. So this is definitely a thing.
And I like credit pineapples for this. It's funny because
pineapples even entered language. They even became slang. If you
wanted to describe something as top notch aces, the best
(31:31):
of the best of creme de la creme, then in
the seventeen seventies, you might say, a pineapple of the
finest flavor. So let's go go back to buy fictional
date and I would I would have this pineapple I've rented,
and it's like, I wanted to show you this pineapple
because you my dear pineapple of the finest flavor. Yeah,
(31:53):
and that wouldn't be weird back then. No, it wouldn't be.
And I'm only guessing here, but I imagine as time
went on, if that was can still be used to
be like that Dame is a real pineapple? Exactly, yes, exactly. Um,
there's a play in seventeen seventy five called The Rivals,
where a character compliments someone by saying he is the
(32:14):
very pineapple of politeness. And I think we bring it back.
I'm with you, Ben, I'm with you. Uh, never mind,
I'm gonna work on this woman. We'll sybe we can
try some of these out at the end of the show.
Um but yeah, so okay. So trade began to expand
in Britain in the eighteenth century, and the pineapple as
(32:37):
we know it already exists as both a super bespoke
fruit that you dare not even eat it's so expensive.
But the temptation and the nect of the pineapple. Um,
but you you know, use it for decor rent it,
perhaps you know, own it if you're super well off.
And then that symbol, the iconography of the pineapple. It's
(33:00):
such a distinct shape. You know, you can see it
in silhouette like without even having any any detail. I
And let's think about things like Hawaiian shirts bend or
just things like tablecloths perhaps, or like dish towels. Right,
that's a popular thing even today. And so when that
trade started expanding in Britain, all these home good companies
(33:22):
that were like you know, pumping out textiles and different things,
you know, for the happy homemaker. They started using the
pineapple as as as a print, you know, um for
fabrics and things like that, or or various you know,
carvings and emblems, etcetera. Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. You would
see it on clocks. You would see it on paintings
(33:44):
who would be walking into you know, the living room
or the parlor and it would be pineapple themed outdoors.
You would also see this on garden sculptures, on carriages,
and this is like the Grand Manner houses or where
you would see these pineapples carved in stone on these
plinths just sitting out in the yard. Because the idea was,
(34:08):
you know what, this fruit may not last forever, but
if I can get a sculpture of it, everybody who
walks into my house is gonna know that at one point,
you guys, I had a pineapple. That's what this stone
is about. Less d forget, I am aware of pineapples.
(34:28):
I am a classy dude, and I'm sorry you buried
the lead a little bit there. Plinth plinth, give it
to me. A plinth is just you know how when
you see a statue or like a bust or a sculpture,
and it's it's resting on a column some sort. The plinth.
Is that that really heavy base that you put the
(34:51):
statue or or the valls on. Wow? All right, well
I definitely learned a new word today, plinth. It doesn't
really roll off the tongue. And then, like I said, things,
you know, more fabric patterns, right, like napkins and wallpaper,
even tablecloths. Great article in mental Flaws, the super Lux
(35:11):
History of Pineapples. Um goes through a lot of this
stuff beautifully as always. And of course you know paintings.
That was a huge thing too. It was just really
really popular image because of all this association with wealth
and opulence and even I think that hospitality thing still
is part of the conversation here. Um is part of
the conversation here. But yeah, it had become this symbol
(35:36):
of good taste. Okay. I think I think that's that's
what it all boils down to at this point, Um,
good taste and opulence and and absurd, you know, grotesque wealth.
But I think the good taste part is the thing
that's going to kind of carry it on. Right. Yeah,
I'm just I'm laughing because I just keep imagining these
(35:57):
various scenarios where really important people took the time out
of their day to make sure that someone else knew
they had a pineapple. It's kind of like it's like
the president of a country stopping all official business to
make an announcement that they have a PS five. But
(36:17):
it's on an order of magnitude, you know, more expensive
than that. So for a while, pineapples were an English industry.
In Europe, however, technology would soon change the pineapples. Social
status advancements in the early eighties began to make the
(36:40):
pineapple less of a pain to grow and therefore more common. Essentially,
Holland invented some new hothouse technology which allowed them to
grow pineapples there. The steamship came into the game, which
meant quicker journeys, the pineapples were less likely to rot.
(37:01):
More people were making money in Victorian England, and it
wasn't long before the upwardly mobile, you know, like the
upper middle class could start having pineapples at dinner parties
of their own, which scandalizes the Royals. Now the pineapples
uncool if the if the cleabs can have it. They
(37:22):
hated that. They hated that as well, we can't have
nice things. It's true. Yeah, the pineapple boom, or at
least know the pineapple bubble had burst, right because now
everyone could afford a pineapple. Didn't have quite the same cachet,
but now people could enjoy the pineapple. For why you
should enjoy the pineapple, ben for why you enjoy the
(37:44):
pineapple so well? To eat It's succulent, delicious flavor and
um versatility in cooking and any other culinary pursuits. Due
we would be so impressive if we traveled back to
this period of time in Europe, I would just we
just bring a lot of pineapples with us, right, and
they would be like, well, clearly, clearly these people are
(38:07):
emperors of some foreign land. Why else would they have
this wheelbarrow of pineapples exactly tossing them off like fake
joker money in Batman exactly love us. You could buy
a house with a pineapple, I bet. Anyhow, Yeah, the
the aristocracy hates it. The world is being upended in
pineapples now are no longer cool, and we could get
(38:30):
a slice for a penny on the street, literally like
like it was like street food exactly exactly, and you
could find it installs in most cities and towns across
the country, and satirical cartoonists would start drawing pictures of
working class people eating pineapples, and it was very much
(38:54):
a visual metaphor for the problem of social progress. And
then the invention of canning injured the mix, and now
you could you could have pineapples preserve. So you start
seeing these rings of pineapple that have been canned, and
they're showing up in everything. People are adding pineapple to
(39:17):
food at a crazy rate. They spend so much time
figuring out that they could do this. You never asked
if they should add pineapple to things like meatloaf. Yeah,
there's a there's a rough era for that kind of
I think it's called the seventies. Uh. The jello salads,
the jello salad days and U not just the salad
(39:39):
days are good. That's a good thing, right, you pine
for the salad days you know of your youth, Right,
the jello salad the jealous salad days not not so good.
But yeah, I mean I love this, I really do.
Especially just the idea of you know, the average you know,
people being able to eat the pineapple and it pissing
(40:02):
off the aristocracy. I'm always all about that in history,
but today, I mean it's it's it's just as popular
as ever. People love pineapple. It's great and smoothies. Like
you said that, we gave a bunch of things on
the top of show that we like. Pineapple, upside down
cake great just as a snack. You know, in the
fruit cup, you know of of our youth, which you
can now pretty much get something very similar, hopefully with
(40:25):
a little bit better distribution of cherries. For you, Ben,
thanks to that you remembered, I'm touched. Have you Have
you heard of a lot of fruit to the place
here in Atlanta? Right? Yeah, Yeah, they're They're pretty awesome.
That's where you can go and get I never thought
that I would be the kind of person who, as
an adult, would drive somewhere specifically to get a fruit cup.
(40:49):
But they are nailing it. If you were ever in Atlanta,
you get a chance go check out a lot of
fruit to their their top notch. I'll tell you what
I'm fascinated by, Ben. I'm I almost guarantee that you've
tried it. One of my favorite places in Atlanta is
Plaza Fiesta. It's that's like really cool indoor Mexican mall
with you know, all kinds of food stalls and you
(41:10):
know taker he is, and amazing things that you can
get good leather goods like boots, like outfitters, really really
really fun. It feels like you stepped through a portal
into another place entirely. It's it's it's a beautiful place.
But they one of the most popular things they always
see people they're um enjoying are these amazing fruit cups,
(41:31):
usually with mango slices and often pineapple and a few
other little things thrown in. But they have these like
swizzle stick looking things that are covered in this like
chili powder that's like spicy chili powder, and they're meant
to be like a sweet, savory, almost salty cup situation.
And I've always been a little freaked out to try.
But the more I'm thinking, all, you know what, the
(41:52):
only live once, and I'm getting older and my tastes
are changing, I think I might be down for one
of those. If you had one, then yeah, yeah, I'm
a fan. I would try it out. I haven't had
one of those years. I think you'll dig it. I'd
be interested to hear what you think, what your take
on it is. We also are interested to hear your
experiences with pineapple in the modern day, because it's coming
(42:15):
back as a symbol. We've seen, well, you know, people
that would sometimes be called hipsters rocking pineapples as as
a you know, as like a Hawaiian shirt or I
work actually with a writer from Vanity Fair. I'm not
gonna name names, but one of the first things I
noticed about this guy, who's a brilliant writer, is he
(42:35):
has a big pineapple tattoo on his forearm. Interesting, and
it's really cool. He's way cooler than me. I should
point that out, But now here we are. The pineapple
became insanely popular. It had kind of a fall from grace,
but it remains. It remains iconic in the modern day because,
(42:59):
like Sentinel, it looks incredibly distinct and it also tastes
incredibly good. Uh been quick hot take pineapples on pizza?
You know what, I think people's pizzas should be their own.
If you bought the pizza, put whatever you want on it,
but you personally are you a pineapple on pizza? That
(43:19):
says a lot about someone's personality, does it? Uh? I
have that pineapple on pizza. I'm not opposed to it.
I don't you know, Hawaiian pizza sometimes has too much
pineapple and ham on it. I think you gotta you
gotta have a soft touch. I like it occasionally, you know,
for a treat. But yeah, please, Ben, I'm sorry I
interrupted you for that hot take, which I think is
(43:41):
very valuable, so I think it was worth it. But please,
oh man, Yeah, it's a good question. I'm surprised we
didn't get to it yet. We do have. This is
the end of our two part episode of Pineapple, but
almost like a superhero movie with a stinger a post
credit scene. We do have a little bit of a
tease for maybe an episode in the future. Yeah. The
(44:04):
upper class when they realized that pineapples were, you know,
no longer the hot produce, they had to find a
new way to let everybody in society know that they
were in fact better than them. And they didn't learn
their lesson from the Pineapple tobaccle, where many people lost
thousands and thousands and thousands dollars. Instead, they decided to
(44:29):
look for another luxurious, difficult to grow food it's so ridiculous. No,
what was it? Yeah, it was Celery Bob Bob, which
just I mean, look, I I like Selary for like,
you know, you know, it's the holy trinity of Cajun cooking.
(44:51):
You know, celery, carrots, onion, was that the three? I know,
that's that's what trinity is. But anyway, it's very, very
great for making like a base the mayor off of
like a lot of like cooking on its own, not
a fan. You know, it's got the crunch. It's good
if you're trying to avoid carbs. You can dip it
and stuff. But it's also the kind of thing that
you see haphazardly thrown into your like styrofoam box of
(45:13):
to go chicken wings. So clearly that has gone quite
a leap away from where these weird riches were hoping
it would. But stay tuned for more on that. And
I would love to hear about the history of selling.
I do want to add really quickly, Hawaiian pizza was
invented in Canada by the owner of a Greek restaurant.
That's all we're gonna We're gonna leave it with that,
(45:35):
And I alluded to the top episode one um, and
we didn't really get into it. The pineapple is so
sought actor that it actually created like a coup type situation.
And that really is the story of pineapples being brought
to the masses in the nineteen hundreds through the Dull
Food Company originally called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, and it said,
(46:00):
actually they deposed the last sovereign ruler of Hawaii before
you know, and the annexation of it. It's a whole
thing I recommend. I think Ben would agree to listen
to a special episode of Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know, our other show with special guest hosts super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson and and Danish Schwartz. Yeah.
(46:25):
I've been thinking about that episode the entire time we
were recording these. Uh. They did a wonderful job. It's
a it's a deep dive into the events that led
to Hawaii becoming a US state. Uh In the pineapple,
like the banana in South America, had a role to
play in in this story of imperialism. So please do
(46:50):
check this out. Please also stay tuned as we as
we learn more about Celery. That's so ridiculous and cellar
like beef stew, and the whole trinity, which is, you know,
like you said, onion, bell, pepper, and cellery. But pepper,
that's the one. That's the one. Yeah. But we're gonna
call it a day because I think this episode has
(47:10):
made both of us hungry. We can talk about food forever.
And it's crazy. You get a whole another episode from
Alexis and Dana on just the one thing that we
barely even scratched on. I can't believe how much pineapple
content there is out there, Bennett, right right, We're still
We're still flexing like the aristocrats of old. Also like
(47:30):
to recommend an episode of our sister podcast, Saver with
Lauren Vogel Bomb and Annie Reese. You may recognize from
earlier episodes of Ridiculous History. They have an episode all
about just renting pineapples. It's called May I Rent Your Pineapple?
Do check it out and let us know what you think.
(47:51):
Thanks to the whole crew. Uh no, this this is uh,
this is a wild ride. This one was a lot
of fun. What do you think, Oh dude, it's more
fun than you could shake a pineapple app You could
shake a pineapple at anything. It's not that hard, they're
not that heavy. They're they're just you know, spiny. Be
careful handling that pineapple. Yeah, do it by the base
of the pineapple, because if you do it by the crowd,
(48:13):
you're just gonna pull the crowd off. And then will
it still be the king of fruits? That's a good question.
It's a good question, Ben. And speaking of questions, we'd
like to hear from you, why not swing on by
ridiculous historians on Facebook? Tell us your weird stories about
fruits of yesteryear, or you know what produce and spices
(48:34):
that became incredibly expensive? Pineapples far from the only example
I love to hear about that. You can also find
my colleague Nolan I on social media, not as shows,
but as people. Oh my gosh, we are in fact people.
You can find me on Instagram I am at how
now Noel Brown posting, you know, just stuff from around
the house. Yeah, a lot of like weird music videos
(48:56):
and I just kind of film on my TV until
you know, the algoray them makes me pull them down
or pulls them now automatically. But you know, my kid
doing cosplays and stuff like that. You know, come, come,
join me on my life's journey via Instagram. How about you, Ben,
You've got a couple of spots people can find you. Yeah,
I want to say, Uh, Noel's meme game is strong.
So do do you take a look at his stories?
I always get to kick out of those. Yeah, you can.
(49:19):
While you're on the internet. You can find me having
a various misadventures on Instagram where I'm at Ben Boland
b O W l I N. You can also find
me on Twitter at Ben Bolan hs W. The old
school folks know where that hs W comes from. Old
school folks like like my pal Noel. Here are super
(49:40):
producer Casey Pegram thanks to you, and of course thanks
to our may Man guest producer Andrew Howard. You know
what I think if we're going to use the name
the Pineapple Kid, Andrew feels more like the Pineapple Kid
to mean, do you think he'd like that name? We
have to ask him. But he's pretty He's a pretty
agreeable fellow. He's way more chill than we are. He's
(50:01):
pretty chill. But yeah, I do like the Pineapple Kid.
But I do feel like it that it should be
reserved for some sort of hardened criminal or DJ. Yeah.
I mean just it's like the inverse relationship between cute
names and threats in prison. Like if if you see
someone in prison and their name is like the death Dealer,
(50:24):
then you know what you're getting. But if you see
someone who's name like Spurfee or the Pineapple kid, run away, runaway, runaway,
or punched them right in the face first thing, when
you walk into the mess hall to exercise your dominance,
that's that's the that's what they tell you. That's prison
rules there, man, Ben, thank you of course. Uh. In
(50:44):
addition to Jonathan Strickling, the quister who I'm I'm been missing,
I don't feel like I have any bad things to
say about him anymore. I just he doesn't come around
the knock anymore. I kind of missed him. I think maybe,
um my negative talk has kept him at bay. So
I'm going to try to woo him back to us
because I think we're ahead now. So I think I
maybe only cranky when we're behind in the quiz game. Yeah, well, uh,
(51:07):
I think we are one ahead because we had some
help from our research associate, gave Louizier. Remember it's right,
and we won, So come on, back at us, Come
at us, Strickland. We were ready for you. Huge thanks
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. All the people,
all of you lovely ridiculous historians, joined the Facebook group
(51:30):
Ridiculous Historians. You can talk to all your fellow history
bouts out there on the internet. Quick idea, Well, let's
let us know how you feel about this. Let's up
the stakes for the quister segment and say that the
winner gets a pineapple. Love it. Whether or not they
want it, it's yours, Now do with it what you will.
(51:50):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. For fans of Lost, the
television show, you might enjoy this previously on Ridiculous History.
This is This is part two of our episode on
King Pine a k a. The Pineapple a k a.
(00:49):
One of our favorite fruits on the show. Shout out
to super producer Casey Pegram, guest producer Andrew Howard. They
called me, they called me Ben or the Pineapple Kid.
I'm going by that. No, no, the Pineapple Kid. I
like that. You should rob a bank. It's probably you
have probably had to capitalize on this whole mask wearing situation.
(01:12):
It's not gonna be around for terribly much longer, hopefully,
and rob a bank. I'm surprised there haven't been more
like wild West style heists. You know, everyone would just
blend right in, you just walk right out of the street,
and I would know I did. Uh. I did a
video for brain Stuff back in the day about the
economics of robbing a bank. It's pretty depressing. I talked
(01:32):
about this. Yeah, yeah, you don't make much. You don't
make much money. Per heist. It's uh, it's not the
best business to be in. So bank robbing now it
would be like kind of like spoken word, you gotta
be in it for the experience. Well that's what that's
what you gotta do. Like you gotta think bigger Ben,
you got just Robert Bank. You gotta like do on
(01:53):
Ocean's eleven style casino hist or robbed like the Museum
of Natural History steal the Declaration of Independence. That be
a good ridiculous history style heist. Yeah, yeah, Now heist
in a museum I'm on board with. And of course
I'm sure there's some folks in the audience today, Noel
who are remembering that old quote, if you really want
(02:14):
to make money, don't rob a bank, start one or
something like that, if you really want to rob people.
I can't remember, but what we can remember is our
earlier episode on the mania for pineapples that swept Europe
right in the fifteen through sixteenth century. Specifically, I think
(02:37):
we were both surprised to learn that the pineapple at
one time in Europe costs the equivalent of eight thousand
dollars each today, right, that was the number I think insane.
I mean truly. Even the royals would look at it
as an absolute delicacy, a treat only for the most
(02:57):
special of occasions. Uh, you're right, it's ingle fruit was
worth thousands of pounds. As we know, pounds have always
been more than a dollar. Yeah, so I think the
number you said nails it, um. But these things were well, remember,
let's just backtrack, ever so slightly previously on ridiculous history.
You know, it all started with one pineapple. I was
(03:18):
talking to some friends last night about how, you know,
just that one pineapple made it, and they're like, well,
how did it keep from getting too ripe? And that's
exactly right. The other ones that that came across, you know,
on that journey with Columbus, clearly we're already too ripe
in the first place and just rotted and became the
sticky morass of goo. And I'm imagining that the one
(03:38):
that made it was probably really green or unripe, you know.
And then it like took the time of that voyage
to ripen because I was a big dommy and I
was little way at ice. Right, No, they didn't have ice.
He had to go like the Arctic circle to get ice.
So the best they could do is keep them in
a cool, dry place, which would have been the you know,
the hold of the ship. But yeah, that one pineapple
(03:58):
started this whole pineap apple craze because King Ferdinand of
Spain went absolutely bonkers for it, and the idea of
having a pineapple that was about the best anyone could
hope for. And they would get like traded around, paraded
down the streets for events and things like that, and
it got to the point where there became this whole,
like weird side hustle behind pineapples, had nothing to do
(04:22):
with cooking or eating or fruit or anything. Yes, so
we see this happen often in the world of luxury
goods and material flexes. Something starts out and the upper
echelons of society that's where it becomes cool, right and desirable,
and then people in lower rungs of society, right like
(04:45):
well to do merchants, for instance, learn about the upper
classes love of a specific thing, and they say, well,
I want to get in on the party. I want
a Rolex Rolls Royce or a pine apple. I think
those are the examples we used earlier, And that's exactly
what happens here. There was this crazy hectic trade in pineapples,
(05:08):
but not selling pineapples, because a lot of people couldn't
afford to own a pineapple. Uh. Instead, the trade centered
on renting pineapples. That's that's what we're gonna talk about today.
We're gonna see how this came to be. When last
we left off with the Saga of the pineapple, Europeans
were trying, without much luck, to grow the fruit themselves.
(05:32):
Pineapples need a tropical environment, and Europe is famously mostly
not a tropical place. But there's there is something interesting.
In the hundreds, some folks in England figured out how
to grow a pineapple. And that might sound wild to
anybody who's familiar with British weather, right famously gray, and
(05:56):
there's a stereotype of it being bleak and dreary and
so on. But it appears that some people in England
actually pulled it off. They had to be gardeners that
were either very very wealthy already or very very good
at garden. Yes. And the man that may have possessed
one or both of those, uh certain sets of skills
(06:18):
was this guy named John Rose, who is often incorrectly
connected with growing the very first pineapple in England. Because
there's a painting by Charles the Second Um, which he
commissioned in sixteen, which shows John Rose presenting the King
with this, you know, prized homegrown pineapple. But it turns
(06:43):
out that as often as the case in these sorts
of paintings depicting some sort of ceremonial pomp and circumstances
type thing, um, the narrative is a little bit forced.
The pineapple that is in the painting, which was in
fact based on a real thing that happened, was one
that was imported from the Bahamas and then ripened in
(07:05):
England by Rose. Oh and here here's why those pineapples
survived the journey at all. I was thinking about this
after we recorded Episode one. A pineapple takes about twenty
eight months to grow and then another six months to ripen,
so you've got a pretty long runway there. Okay, Well,
(07:26):
I just have to say I'm not trying to nag
our guy John Rose here, but doesn't letting a pineapple
ripen just mean like leaving it alone and doing nothing? Well,
it's funny. A lot of it would depend on whether
or not he had one of my new favorite fancy
buildings and orange jury, why not? Why not? Why not
(07:47):
a pineapple a toorium or a pineapple areum or dome
Because it started with oranges makes sense. So I like
a pineapple aream, I like that rolls off the tongue,
but an orange is exactly what it sounds like. These
were buildings that were you'd usually find on wealthy, kind
(08:09):
of trendy estates, and they existed entirely to be citrus
fruit greenhouses. They would protect citrus fruits from frost and
snow during the winter months. But the issue with orangeries,
according to Johanna Lawson Higgins from the Royal Botanical Garden
(08:30):
in Edinburgh, the problem with them is that even these
custom built buildings did not provide enough heat and light
for the pineapple, and that's why it wasn't until seventeen fourteen,
maybe seventeen sixteen, when one gardener, a Dutchman named Henry Talende,
was able to grow a pineapple in England for his boss,
(08:53):
Matthew Decker. And Matthew Decker was so excited about this
that he commissioned a painting and like in seventeen twenty
years later, he says, you know what we need a
painting of Henry growing that pineapple. But you know, um,
being of the wealthy class, who knows, he may have
made it look like he grew the pineapple himself. H exactly.
(09:18):
Looks can be deceiving, especially when they're committed in like
really high quality you know, bespoke oil paintings. And this guy,
I mean, he really does deserve props are coming up
with what was ultimately a very elaborate method that involved
so many variables and keeping them, you know, balanced perfectly.
Soil temperature had to be maintained at the exact correct temperature. Um,
(09:40):
he designed these hot houses, which is I think it's
the same as a greenhouse spend, but I hope any
botanists out there let us know. But they had these
pits that were lined with pebbles, and on top of
the pebbles, he had manure Nature's fertilizer or you know,
just fertilizer sat on a bed of this bark called
(10:04):
Tanner's bark, which is oak bark that's soaked in water.
So he thought all this through really really specifically. Then
there's more. Then he had a pot that contained the
like you know, like a pot of soil that contained
the pineapple plant. But here's the thing. Manure wasn't enough.
It it actually created a lot of heat in the
(10:27):
early stages of experimentation. That's why he needed the bark
to come in and regulate the heat over time though
the wet soaked oak bark, and it would keep the
temperature of the soil at this exact right range that
kind of mimicked that you would find in these more
tropical regions. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, it's
(10:47):
kind of like keeping tropical fish or an octopus, you
know what I mean, or a you know, a saltwater
fish of some sort. They need these very specific environmental conditions.
I do want to say hothouse and greenhouse are used interchangeably.
There's one big difference though, I think technically a greenhouse
is only warmed by the sun, but a hothouse uses
(11:10):
these other methods like maybe the uh the chemical reactions
of manure or furnaces, stuff like that to heat the
produce of the plants inside. And they tried a couple
of different approaches to UH to grow pineapples in England.
Salinda's method, while involved, is pretty impressive. It's got a
(11:33):
mcgeiver vibe. But it was also pretty expensive. A lot
of people tried to get in the pineapple game by
building what they called pine eery's. Personally, I like pineapple
aream but you know, they didn't ask us at the time.
A lot of people are in this game, and it
grew very expensive. The Gentleman's magazine of seventeen sixty four
(11:56):
estimated it would cost you a hundred and fifty pounds
the equivalent of twenty eight thousand pounds today to build
a hothouse to cover your maintenance cost. Operation costs to
buy the pineapple plants themselves, and it was pretty risky
because you weren't guaranteed to get a return on your investment.
(12:17):
And also a lot of people accidentally killed their pineapples
because of the ways they tried to heat them. Right,
uh and and I don't know then, would you consider
this an operation that quickly was able to you know
what they say in the corporate world scale, you know
what I mean, like or or would you know that
would be really expensive operation? Right? Yeah, And it's a
(12:40):
long term investment, so it will take several years for
the pineapple fruit to bloom if you don't kill it,
and then of course they will take another six months
to ripen. People killed their pineapples pretty often. Actually, they
tried to heat some of these glasshouses with furnaces that
were in side the building, but the fumes from the
(13:02):
furnaces would kill or damage the plants. And then they
tried firewalls, which sound cool. Uh, the the idea is, well,
they sound hot. Right there we go out of the
ideas that hot hot. You would get a stove or
furnace and you would use the hot air rising from
that to like run along the wall to heat the
(13:25):
wall of the hot house or the pinery. But the
problem was you needed someone constantly they're stirring the coal
stoke in the So the term firewall started with that
and not necessarily a safety barrier and buildings that would
prevent fired from burning through a wall or did I
make that use of the term up entire Obviously it
(13:46):
also is a computer internet safety thing, But I always
think of a firewall as being a buildings you know,
code spec type thing that that keeps fires from like
penetrating from one portion of the building to the other
sort of does the compartments and the Titanic that like
totally didn't work. Yeah, that's correct, that's that's the that's
where the computing term firewall comes from. These are these
(14:11):
are just something different. These are just hot balls. That's
so cool though. I love that. I love it. It
reminds me of sort of the way the term pineapple
itself with kind of bastardized and flipped around and they're like, Okay,
now it's gonna be this thing. Uh, the English language.
It's like you always say, Ben, it's a it's a
living language. Indeed, So okay, costly, complicated, difficult to scale upfront, right,
(14:36):
is it worth it? You know? Is it worth the
difference between trying this elaborate you know, plan to grow
them domestically versus just importing them, because, like you said,
there's a pretty big window. Yeah. Yeah, But if everything
goes well, if you can figure out a heating and
maintenance method that you can keep up long enough, then
(14:57):
you are going to end up being pineapple tycoon. At
this point, hope grown pineapple will sell for the equivalent
of eleven thousand pounds today, so it's even more expensive
that it wasn't when Ferdinand was first nothing on pineapples,
and I thought I thought this was funny. This reminds
(15:19):
me of organic farmers markets. The pineapples were even more
desirable if they still had shoots and leaves on them,
because then you would know that some some aristocrat had
grown them there in Europe, so you would be you
would be like, okay, so that's so wait a minute,
(15:41):
wait minute. So the domestic pineapple became even more value
than the imported pineapple. It's a more of a flex
because you know, you would be like, wait, why would
I wait for a pineapple to ship with sailors across
the Atlantic when I could simply buy something from Earl
of Sadwich. Odd Wade didn't shy, are you? I don't know,
(16:04):
I get it's it's already. It's already kind of a weird, impulsive,
you know, opulent thing, which usually involves a little bit
of instant gratification. Right. You know, you don't wanna have
to wait for your like fancy thing to make you
feel all, you know big, You want to right now
for that dopamine hit. Yeah, exactly, And this is there's
(16:27):
a funny passage in Pineapple, a Global History by an
anthropologist named cal Y O'Connor where they talk about this, Uh,
they talk about this weird decision A lot of possessors
of pineapple had to face. Are you going to display
it to let people know how well off you are
(16:47):
or are you gonna fold to your curiosity and eat
the fruit yourself. M This was a dilemma for people
because even if you're really wealthy in Europe at the time,
you know, you wouldn't casually be buying a pineapple no
matter who you are. It's it's a pretty significant investment.
And yeah, they taste great, but if you eat it,
(17:10):
you no longer have that flex. Yes, it actually became
almost more popular to display, like think of like the
the the most you know, all of the still lives
and you know, fruit paintings of the time, and before
you know, the pineapple is the most kind of arresting
and uh, you know, unique looking of all of those,
and often is the centerpiece of those kinds of displays.
(17:33):
And it makes sense because it's quite large, so it
did everything kind of crowds around it because it is
in fact the king of the fruits, in the same
way that Godzilla is arguably the king of the monsters.
I'm I'm more of a calm guy how about you
been uh, you know, I enjoy all Kaiju and one
of the few people who thought Pacific Rim was great.
(17:53):
What are you talking about? It was fantastic. I love this.
I love Pacific Rim. I didn't think that was a
controversial opinion. Oh yeah, I think the studios sank it,
but it did so well in the Chinese market that
it managed to get a sequel. I don't think Pacific
Rim three is coming out, but there is a new anime,
Pacific Rim Black, on Netflix, so check it out if
(18:16):
you like. If you like me love Giant Robots and Kaiju,
I don't know, man, calm Godzilla, They've both got there.
Did you see the new one? I did, and I
don't know. You know, it's easy to rag on anything
like that is just big, dumb, fun popcorn, you know, nonsense.
But I quite enjoyed it. Be I did not care
for the previous one, King of the Monsters, because it
(18:38):
was so focused on the kind of boring interpersonal relationships
between the human characters, and they kind of dispensed with
that entirely and gave us the monster. Like the one
of the shows that I've watched on YouTube, red letter Media,
these dudes do movie reviews and the show called half
in the Bag. That's fantastic. They described it as like
a really expensive version of like a six year old
(19:00):
hanging as action figures together, you know, in the bathtub
or something. And I was here for it. How about you? Yeah? Same?
Of course, folks who know about the other show that
we do stuff they want you to know. You can imagine.
I had some complicated feelings when I saw that one
of the main characters is a conspiracy theory podcaster, and
(19:25):
I was like, oh man, I'm thinking there za, guys.
But I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons.
It's just a childlike thrill, and people found pineapples also thrilling.
It hit them emotionally in a way that other fruits
didn't because of a very simple fact. It was almost
(19:51):
impossible for the average person to get their hands on
a pineapple, but the literary world was filled with these
crazy descriptions, some a little bit erotic, of how the
pineapple tasted like you would you could easily go your
entire life without tasting a pineapple, but reading something new
(20:14):
every week about how amazing it was, and this just
made people more hungry. On several levels for a pineapple
and one other people know you had access to it.
And that's where we see the rise of pineapple as decoration.
I mentioned before the you know, the entrance of some
(20:35):
fancy buildings having pineapples depicted in masonry, or when you
go into some old hotels you'll see a pineapple for
something like just the painting of a pineapple. I love
hotel paintings, man, it's so weird. There's something to them.
You're right, And it turns out actually not to blow
I'm not gonna name name it, but a colleague of ours,
his partner um that is, her job is to curate
(20:58):
hotel paintings. So there's definitely like somebody think putting some
thought into it. I think it depends on the type
of hotel, perhaps the number of stars that it has,
as to the tastefulness of said paintings. But I think
the ones you're talking about, Ben are the ones that
are real bargain basement and you're like, who did this
and where did this come from? And why is this here?
It's probably like you know, a sailboat, a single sailboat
(21:20):
on a placid c or something like that. Yeah, or like,
you know, a sad clown. Oh god, really you've seen
you've seen sad clowns, and that's that would be triggering
for so many people. I know. Yeah, I'm thinking of this.
Uh this really creepy casino. I ended up in Vegas
one time when I was at ce suh, the Consumer
(21:42):
Electronics showcase, which was a circus circus. Surely it was
circus circus if it had clown theme. Yeah, I think
it was. I think that's a creepy man. I I
enjoyed it. But anyway, anyway, decorations, people want you to
know that, unlike the pores, they have a pineapple. Uh.
So the Landed aristocracy is in kind of this, keeping
(22:05):
up with the Jones's arms race of living a big life, right,
gambling and and boozing, and then also cultivating pineapple with
around the clock care and these custom built pine earys
tons of cold to keep the temperature right. The cost
of rearing each one was equivalent to eight thousand dollars
(22:28):
which is probably why the price went up to eleven
thousand later. Wow, like if through the life of the
pineapple eight grand per apple. Yes, yes, that's wild, because
this seems unsustainable this seems like a bubble, you know,
like the like the tulip craze, you know something. Yeah,
(22:48):
it's I mean think about they're creating an environment that
does not naturally exist in this part of the world.
It's also not good for literally anything else. So it's
so it comes so very expensive that eventually even the
aristocrats are saying, you know, it's tremendously wasteful to grow
(23:09):
one of these pineapples and simply eat them. Then you
have new pineapples salt. And that's why they became dinner
time decorations. You would just you would like go to
a fancy dinner and you would see you would see
a pineapple in the middle of like this very opulent
fruit plate and the pineapples in the middle because you're
(23:31):
not supposed to eat it. You're just supposed to look
at it while you eat cheaper fruit. And then I
guess you say to the host, oh, wow, you do
have a pineapple dope, and they're like, they're like, what's
it tastes like? And they're like, I don't know, I'm
not going to eat it. This was eleven grand oh no,
And it's interesting. Then you point out the gestation period,
let's just call it. It's totally not the right science
(23:52):
through at all, But for how long it takes for
the thing to ripen? Right, So that gives you a
pretty long window of displaying it. But at what point
in that does it always look the same? Is it green?
Does it go from like green to I mean, honestly,
even a right pineapple is sort of green on the outside. Um,
I wonder how long how long do you think you
have with this prize possession? And if it's just getting
(24:16):
there at the tail end or okay, this is about
to go. I've gotten three months of display out of it,
and now it's time to crack it open and take
a bite. Well, nowadays, if you look at the modern
pineapple expiration date, it's pretty crazy. A whole pineapple will
last two to three days on the counter the day. Okay,
(24:39):
But again I gotta pose this question, what does it
look like when it's at the beginning of that six
month ripening period that we're talking about. It has to
look different, right, Yeah, yeah, it'll it'll look different like
getting fruit. The appearance will change over time. Obviously, people
were keeping these pineapples for much longer than two to
three days because they two of three days is the
(25:01):
window in which you can eat it and it will
still taste fresh. But again they're not eating it, so
they're they are riding this horse to the ground, by
which I mean they're going to have that pineapple out
there for as long as possible, even if it's rotting,
because it's not as though someone is going to eat it.
(25:22):
This craze, by the way, it took off in the
American colonies as well. They were imported from the Caribbean
islands and they were still really expensive because you would
think maybe pineapples would be cheaper, right because the colonies
are closer. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The colonists would
display pineapples as well, but when they're started going rotten,
(25:44):
they would eat them. Right. See, there we go, we're
speaking the same language. Um. But but even there's where
like around eight k you know for one of these,
it was very close to the prices in England. Yeah,
which is nuts. And now we have to reveal just
how crazy this got. Nol. What's up with the pineapple
(26:05):
rental markets? Uh huh yeah, I mean, you know, how
how much time do you want? Then? I know it's
one of your big things. We talked about it a lot.
I've got a beautiful, beautiful fruit. I will rent you
for let's call it a hundred bucks a day. Alright,
do I need insurance or well, you can protect your
(26:28):
you know, you can get rental insurance for an extra
ten okay, because I'm going on a date and I
just really want to flex. Yeah, but don't drop it, ben,
and definitely don't eat it. This is like a you know, look,
but but don't eat situation. Got it? One ten doesn't
seem that bad now? By again, by today's then you
can buy your own pineapple. But you don't need me.
(26:49):
I have an antiquated business I have actually I have
been outpaced by history. Um. I really should have thought
this business model through, but act then. It was a
great business model because you know, it was like the
Blockbuster video model, you know, where you could just uh,
you know, get a bunch of pineapples and instead of
selling them and having a one time payout, you keep
(27:13):
cycling them through and renting them to people. Um. And
it became a pretty lucrative trade, the pineapple rental market.
There's so much status wrapped up in these um people
wanted to get in on the party at the very least,
they wanted to appear as if they were in on
the party. Um, so they might just rent a pineapple
(27:35):
for a night for a dinner soiree, you know, to
use for that centerpiece on the table, and that you know,
would be enough nominal, enough of a fee they could
afford it. They could feel like they, you know, we're somehow,
you know, keeping up with the Jones. It's the same
as people that like buy luxury clothing items when they
(27:56):
just really don't make enough money to do that to
justify ending two hundred dollars on a on a Gucci
shirt or whatever. That's probably low, but they feel so
you know, pressured by society and by the people they
follow on social media and all this stuff. Sorry, I'm
soapboxing here a little bit that they'll like, you know,
overspend and spend out of their means to get this stuff.
(28:17):
Not saying people shouldn't have what they want and feel
good about the clothing that they have and if that's
what you're into the fashion and stuff, but I think
a lot of it is pressure. And this is definitely
what this is when you say pressure to keep up
and and and to you know, fight that those feelings
of jealousy. Yeah right, Like I was saying earlier, it's
like an arms race to keep up with the Joneses.
But to the point about designer fashion, this this led
(28:41):
me down an interesting rabbit hole because I was wondering
whether some unscrupulous merchant did the same thing that many
merchants do in the modern day, which is to make knockoffs,
was their counterfeit pineapple market. I to me, that's really
interesting because has so many people who saw pineapples wouldn't
(29:03):
have seen them in person. It would have heard about
them and seen paintings, right or drawings. So I bet
there was somebody selling fake pineapples the same way people sell,
you know, knockoff supreme gear or something. But this also
leads us to another funny thing. Well, the funny thing
that turns pretty dark pretty quickly. This means that for
(29:25):
a lot of people who could actually afford to buy pineapples,
they were buying pineapples used because these things have been
rented out for several days beforehand. Right, and now you
get this used pineapple, who knows how many people have
touched it? The maids would transport pineapples from dinner party
(29:45):
to dinner party were also incredibly lucrative targets for thieves,
so they had to be very, very careful. We know
that pineapples became a source of crime in eighteen o seven.
There are several cases for pineapple theft. One guy was
(30:07):
sentenced to something called transportation, which is way less cool
than it sounds. It was basically exiled to Australia for
seven years for stealing seven pineapples. It's so funny, Ben,
So I had to had to bring this up really quickly,
the idea of, you know, comparing the luxury clothing situation
(30:27):
to this pineapple situation. I don't know if you're a
fan of the show Parks and Recreation, Ben, but a
Z's and Sorry's character Tom Haverford UM is always pitching
these like bad business ideas, and the one that he
does that actually sort of takes off is a company
called rent a Swag where you are able to rent
(30:47):
luxury clothing, you know, for a period of time and
then return it. Uh. And I was looking it up
and I found an article that talked about these two
um actual Silicon Valley startups. One's called Lottote and I
believe they've advertised with us on different podcasts UM and
another one called counter Squad or sorry couldtur Squad, and
they essentially allow you to rotate outfits through each month
(31:11):
and then send them back and then they build themselves
into Netflix for clothes. So this is definitely a thing.
And I like credit pineapples for this. It's funny because
pineapples even entered language. They even became slang. If you
wanted to describe something as top notch aces, the best
(31:31):
of the best of creme de la creme, then in
the seventeen seventies, you might say, a pineapple of the
finest flavor. So let's go go back to buy fictional
date and I would I would have this pineapple I've rented,
and it's like, I wanted to show you this pineapple
because you my dear pineapple of the finest flavor. Yeah,
(31:53):
and that wouldn't be weird back then. No, it wouldn't be.
And I'm only guessing here, but I imagine as time
went on, if that was can still be used to
be like that Dame is a real pineapple? Exactly, yes, exactly. Um,
there's a play in seventeen seventy five called The Rivals,
where a character compliments someone by saying he is the
(32:14):
very pineapple of politeness. And I think we bring it back.
I'm with you, Ben, I'm with you. Uh, never mind,
I'm gonna work on this woman. We'll sybe we can
try some of these out at the end of the show.
Um but yeah, so okay. So trade began to expand
in Britain in the eighteenth century, and the pineapple as
(32:37):
we know it already exists as both a super bespoke
fruit that you dare not even eat it's so expensive.
But the temptation and the nect of the pineapple. Um,
but you you know, use it for decor rent it,
perhaps you know, own it if you're super well off.
And then that symbol, the iconography of the pineapple. It's
(33:00):
such a distinct shape. You know, you can see it
in silhouette like without even having any any detail. I
And let's think about things like Hawaiian shirts bend or
just things like tablecloths perhaps, or like dish towels. Right,
that's a popular thing even today. And so when that
trade started expanding in Britain, all these home good companies
(33:22):
that were like you know, pumping out textiles and different things,
you know, for the happy homemaker. They started using the
pineapple as as as a print, you know, um for
fabrics and things like that, or or various you know,
carvings and emblems, etcetera. Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. You would
see it on clocks. You would see it on paintings
(33:44):
who would be walking into you know, the living room
or the parlor and it would be pineapple themed outdoors.
You would also see this on garden sculptures, on carriages,
and this is like the Grand Manner houses or where
you would see these pineapples carved in stone on these
plinths just sitting out in the yard. Because the idea was,
(34:08):
you know what, this fruit may not last forever, but
if I can get a sculpture of it, everybody who
walks into my house is gonna know that at one point,
you guys, I had a pineapple. That's what this stone
is about. Less d forget, I am aware of pineapples.
(34:28):
I am a classy dude, and I'm sorry you buried
the lead a little bit there. Plinth plinth, give it
to me. A plinth is just you know how when
you see a statue or like a bust or a sculpture,
and it's it's resting on a column some sort. The plinth.
Is that that really heavy base that you put the
(34:51):
statue or or the valls on. Wow? All right, well
I definitely learned a new word today, plinth. It doesn't
really roll off the tongue. And then, like I said, things,
you know, more fabric patterns, right, like napkins and wallpaper,
even tablecloths. Great article in mental Flaws, the super Lux
(35:11):
History of Pineapples. Um goes through a lot of this
stuff beautifully as always. And of course you know paintings.
That was a huge thing too. It was just really
really popular image because of all this association with wealth
and opulence and even I think that hospitality thing still
is part of the conversation here. Um is part of
the conversation here. But yeah, it had become this symbol
(35:36):
of good taste. Okay. I think I think that's that's
what it all boils down to at this point, Um,
good taste and opulence and and absurd, you know, grotesque wealth.
But I think the good taste part is the thing
that's going to kind of carry it on. Right. Yeah,
I'm just I'm laughing because I just keep imagining these
(35:57):
various scenarios where really important people took the time out
of their day to make sure that someone else knew
they had a pineapple. It's kind of like it's like
the president of a country stopping all official business to
make an announcement that they have a PS five. But
(36:17):
it's on an order of magnitude, you know, more expensive
than that. So for a while, pineapples were an English industry.
In Europe, however, technology would soon change the pineapples. Social
status advancements in the early eighties began to make the
(36:40):
pineapple less of a pain to grow and therefore more common. Essentially,
Holland invented some new hothouse technology which allowed them to
grow pineapples there. The steamship came into the game, which
meant quicker journeys, the pineapples were less likely to rot.
(37:01):
More people were making money in Victorian England, and it
wasn't long before the upwardly mobile, you know, like the
upper middle class could start having pineapples at dinner parties
of their own, which scandalizes the Royals. Now the pineapples
uncool if the if the cleabs can have it. They
(37:22):
hated that. They hated that as well, we can't have
nice things. It's true. Yeah, the pineapple boom, or at
least know the pineapple bubble had burst, right because now
everyone could afford a pineapple. Didn't have quite the same cachet,
but now people could enjoy the pineapple. For why you
should enjoy the pineapple, ben for why you enjoy the
(37:44):
pineapple so well? To eat It's succulent, delicious flavor and
um versatility in cooking and any other culinary pursuits. Due
we would be so impressive if we traveled back to
this period of time in Europe, I would just we
just bring a lot of pineapples with us, right, and
they would be like, well, clearly, clearly these people are
(38:07):
emperors of some foreign land. Why else would they have
this wheelbarrow of pineapples exactly tossing them off like fake
joker money in Batman exactly love us. You could buy
a house with a pineapple, I bet. Anyhow, Yeah, the
the aristocracy hates it. The world is being upended in
pineapples now are no longer cool, and we could get
(38:30):
a slice for a penny on the street, literally like
like it was like street food exactly exactly, and you
could find it installs in most cities and towns across
the country, and satirical cartoonists would start drawing pictures of
working class people eating pineapples, and it was very much
(38:54):
a visual metaphor for the problem of social progress. And
then the invention of canning injured the mix, and now
you could you could have pineapples preserve. So you start
seeing these rings of pineapple that have been canned, and
they're showing up in everything. People are adding pineapple to
(39:17):
food at a crazy rate. They spend so much time
figuring out that they could do this. You never asked
if they should add pineapple to things like meatloaf. Yeah,
there's a there's a rough era for that kind of
I think it's called the seventies. Uh. The jello salads,
the jello salad days and U not just the salad
(39:39):
days are good. That's a good thing, right, you pine
for the salad days you know of your youth, Right,
the jello salad the jealous salad days not not so good.
But yeah, I mean I love this, I really do.
Especially just the idea of you know, the average you know,
people being able to eat the pineapple and it pissing
(40:02):
off the aristocracy. I'm always all about that in history,
but today, I mean it's it's it's just as popular
as ever. People love pineapple. It's great and smoothies. Like
you said that, we gave a bunch of things on
the top of show that we like. Pineapple, upside down
cake great just as a snack. You know, in the
fruit cup, you know of of our youth, which you
can now pretty much get something very similar, hopefully with
(40:25):
a little bit better distribution of cherries. For you, Ben,
thanks to that you remembered, I'm touched. Have you Have
you heard of a lot of fruit to the place
here in Atlanta? Right? Yeah, Yeah, they're They're pretty awesome.
That's where you can go and get I never thought
that I would be the kind of person who, as
an adult, would drive somewhere specifically to get a fruit cup.
(40:49):
But they are nailing it. If you were ever in Atlanta,
you get a chance go check out a lot of
fruit to their their top notch. I'll tell you what
I'm fascinated by, Ben. I'm I almost guarantee that you've
tried it. One of my favorite places in Atlanta is
Plaza Fiesta. It's that's like really cool indoor Mexican mall
with you know, all kinds of food stalls and you
(41:10):
know taker he is, and amazing things that you can
get good leather goods like boots, like outfitters, really really
really fun. It feels like you stepped through a portal
into another place entirely. It's it's it's a beautiful place.
But they one of the most popular things they always
see people they're um enjoying are these amazing fruit cups,
(41:31):
usually with mango slices and often pineapple and a few
other little things thrown in. But they have these like
swizzle stick looking things that are covered in this like
chili powder that's like spicy chili powder, and they're meant
to be like a sweet, savory, almost salty cup situation.
And I've always been a little freaked out to try.
But the more I'm thinking, all, you know what, the
(41:52):
only live once, and I'm getting older and my tastes
are changing, I think I might be down for one
of those. If you had one, then yeah, yeah, I'm
a fan. I would try it out. I haven't had
one of those years. I think you'll dig it. I'd
be interested to hear what you think, what your take
on it is. We also are interested to hear your
experiences with pineapple in the modern day, because it's coming
(42:15):
back as a symbol. We've seen, well, you know, people
that would sometimes be called hipsters rocking pineapples as as
a you know, as like a Hawaiian shirt or I
work actually with a writer from Vanity Fair. I'm not
gonna name names, but one of the first things I
noticed about this guy, who's a brilliant writer, is he
(42:35):
has a big pineapple tattoo on his forearm. Interesting, and
it's really cool. He's way cooler than me. I should
point that out, But now here we are. The pineapple
became insanely popular. It had kind of a fall from grace,
but it remains. It remains iconic in the modern day because,
(42:59):
like Sentinel, it looks incredibly distinct and it also tastes
incredibly good. Uh been quick hot take pineapples on pizza?
You know what, I think people's pizzas should be their own.
If you bought the pizza, put whatever you want on it,
but you personally are you a pineapple on pizza? That
(43:19):
says a lot about someone's personality, does it? Uh? I
have that pineapple on pizza. I'm not opposed to it.
I don't you know, Hawaiian pizza sometimes has too much
pineapple and ham on it. I think you gotta you
gotta have a soft touch. I like it occasionally, you know,
for a treat. But yeah, please, Ben, I'm sorry I
interrupted you for that hot take, which I think is
(43:41):
very valuable, so I think it was worth it. But please,
oh man, Yeah, it's a good question. I'm surprised we
didn't get to it yet. We do have. This is
the end of our two part episode of Pineapple, but
almost like a superhero movie with a stinger a post
credit scene. We do have a little bit of a
tease for maybe an episode in the future. Yeah. The
(44:04):
upper class when they realized that pineapples were, you know,
no longer the hot produce, they had to find a
new way to let everybody in society know that they
were in fact better than them. And they didn't learn
their lesson from the Pineapple tobaccle, where many people lost
thousands and thousands and thousands dollars. Instead, they decided to
(44:29):
look for another luxurious, difficult to grow food it's so ridiculous. No,
what was it? Yeah, it was Celery Bob Bob, which
just I mean, look, I I like Selary for like,
you know, you know, it's the holy trinity of Cajun cooking.
(44:51):
You know, celery, carrots, onion, was that the three? I know,
that's that's what trinity is. But anyway, it's very, very
great for making like a base the mayor off of
like a lot of like cooking on its own, not
a fan. You know, it's got the crunch. It's good
if you're trying to avoid carbs. You can dip it
and stuff. But it's also the kind of thing that
you see haphazardly thrown into your like styrofoam box of
(45:13):
to go chicken wings. So clearly that has gone quite
a leap away from where these weird riches were hoping
it would. But stay tuned for more on that. And
I would love to hear about the history of selling.
I do want to add really quickly, Hawaiian pizza was
invented in Canada by the owner of a Greek restaurant.
That's all we're gonna We're gonna leave it with that,
(45:35):
And I alluded to the top episode one um, and
we didn't really get into it. The pineapple is so
sought actor that it actually created like a coup type situation.
And that really is the story of pineapples being brought
to the masses in the nineteen hundreds through the Dull
Food Company originally called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, and it said,
(46:00):
actually they deposed the last sovereign ruler of Hawaii before
you know, and the annexation of it. It's a whole
thing I recommend. I think Ben would agree to listen
to a special episode of Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know, our other show with special guest hosts super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson and and Danish Schwartz. Yeah.
(46:25):
I've been thinking about that episode the entire time we
were recording these. Uh. They did a wonderful job. It's
a it's a deep dive into the events that led
to Hawaii becoming a US state. Uh In the pineapple,
like the banana in South America, had a role to
play in in this story of imperialism. So please do
(46:50):
check this out. Please also stay tuned as we as
we learn more about Celery. That's so ridiculous and cellar
like beef stew, and the whole trinity, which is, you know,
like you said, onion, bell, pepper, and cellery. But pepper,
that's the one. That's the one. Yeah. But we're gonna
call it a day because I think this episode has
(47:10):
made both of us hungry. We can talk about food forever.
And it's crazy. You get a whole another episode from
Alexis and Dana on just the one thing that we
barely even scratched on. I can't believe how much pineapple
content there is out there, Bennett, right right, We're still
We're still flexing like the aristocrats of old. Also like
(47:30):
to recommend an episode of our sister podcast, Saver with
Lauren Vogel Bomb and Annie Reese. You may recognize from
earlier episodes of Ridiculous History. They have an episode all
about just renting pineapples. It's called May I Rent Your Pineapple?
Do check it out and let us know what you think.
(47:51):
Thanks to the whole crew. Uh no, this this is uh,
this is a wild ride. This one was a lot
of fun. What do you think, Oh dude, it's more
fun than you could shake a pineapple app You could
shake a pineapple at anything. It's not that hard, they're
not that heavy. They're they're just you know, spiny. Be
careful handling that pineapple. Yeah, do it by the base
of the pineapple, because if you do it by the crowd,
(48:13):
you're just gonna pull the crowd off. And then will
it still be the king of fruits? That's a good question.
It's a good question, Ben. And speaking of questions, we'd
like to hear from you, why not swing on by
ridiculous historians on Facebook? Tell us your weird stories about
fruits of yesteryear, or you know what produce and spices
(48:34):
that became incredibly expensive? Pineapples far from the only example
I love to hear about that. You can also find
my colleague Nolan I on social media, not as shows,
but as people. Oh my gosh, we are in fact people.
You can find me on Instagram I am at how
now Noel Brown posting, you know, just stuff from around
the house. Yeah, a lot of like weird music videos
(48:56):
and I just kind of film on my TV until
you know, the algoray them makes me pull them down
or pulls them now automatically. But you know, my kid
doing cosplays and stuff like that. You know, come, come,
join me on my life's journey via Instagram. How about you, Ben,
You've got a couple of spots people can find you. Yeah,
I want to say, Uh, Noel's meme game is strong.
So do do you take a look at his stories?
I always get to kick out of those. Yeah, you can.
(49:19):
While you're on the internet. You can find me having
a various misadventures on Instagram where I'm at Ben Boland
b O W l I N. You can also find
me on Twitter at Ben Bolan hs W. The old
school folks know where that hs W comes from. Old
school folks like like my pal Noel. Here are super
(49:40):
producer Casey Pegram thanks to you, and of course thanks
to our may Man guest producer Andrew Howard. You know
what I think if we're going to use the name
the Pineapple Kid, Andrew feels more like the Pineapple Kid
to mean, do you think he'd like that name? We
have to ask him. But he's pretty He's a pretty
agreeable fellow. He's way more chill than we are. He's
(50:01):
pretty chill. But yeah, I do like the Pineapple Kid.
But I do feel like it that it should be
reserved for some sort of hardened criminal or DJ. Yeah.
I mean just it's like the inverse relationship between cute
names and threats in prison. Like if if you see
someone in prison and their name is like the death Dealer,
(50:24):
then you know what you're getting. But if you see
someone who's name like Spurfee or the Pineapple kid, run away, runaway, runaway,
or punched them right in the face first thing, when
you walk into the mess hall to exercise your dominance,
that's that's the that's what they tell you. That's prison
rules there, man, Ben, thank you of course. Uh. In
(50:44):
addition to Jonathan Strickling, the quister who I'm I'm been missing,
I don't feel like I have any bad things to
say about him anymore. I just he doesn't come around
the knock anymore. I kind of missed him. I think maybe,
um my negative talk has kept him at bay. So
I'm going to try to woo him back to us
because I think we're ahead now. So I think I
maybe only cranky when we're behind in the quiz game. Yeah, well, uh,
(51:07):
I think we are one ahead because we had some
help from our research associate, gave Louizier. Remember it's right,
and we won, So come on, back at us, Come
at us, Strickland. We were ready for you. Huge thanks
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. All the people,
all of you lovely ridiculous historians, joined the Facebook group
(51:30):
Ridiculous Historians. You can talk to all your fellow history
bouts out there on the internet. Quick idea, Well, let's
let us know how you feel about this. Let's up
the stakes for the quister segment and say that the
winner gets a pineapple. Love it. Whether or not they
want it, it's yours, Now do with it what you will.
(51:50):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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