Berry Expensive

When it comes to fruit, berries top the list of my favorites.  I’ve always been a fan of grapes, apples, and pears – probably because I ate a lot of them when I was a kid – but over the years I’ve come to appreciate berries as much for their taste as for their healthy benefits.  Now don’t ask me to choose a favorite berry because I’d struggle between strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.  And where-oh-where would I rank pineapples?

That’s no berry blunder I just made there.  Pineapples – go figure – are a berry.  I meant to start this post from a wholly different angle but I couldn’t get past this juicy tidbit of trivia.  As a pineapple plant grows, the individual flowers fuse together to create a cluster of “berries”, which go through an extraordinary evolution to end up as the cohesive pineapple you and I know and love.  Grow one in your garden sometime and watch it happen.  For the most part, all you have to do is slice off the top of the fruit and plant it.

I could’ve guessed pineapples fall among nature’s sweetest fruits.  In fact, on a list of the top ten the pineapple rates second-sweetest of them all (only mangoes contain a higher concentration of fructose).  For perspective, grapes, cherries, and strawberries are further down the list and each of those are plenty sweet.  We might as well be talking about candy here instead of pineapple.

I do love pineapple, and I’m guessing part of the appeal is the nostalgia of childhood eats.  My mother liked to serve pineapple chunks on top of cottage cheese as a side salad.  She occasionally broke out a can of Del Monte “Fruit Cocktail”, a concoction of pineapple and other fruit pieces submerged in a sickly-sweet syrup.  My mother also baked whole hams with pineapple rings dotting the surface.  I won’t claim baked pineapple tastes as good as a fresh slice, but the slightly-burnt taste comes to memory like it was yesterday.

There was a pineapple upside-down cake or two in my childhood but I was never really a fan.  Fruit belongs in pies if you ask me (hence my dislike of Easter hot cross buns and Christmas fruitcake).  Admittedly, he or she was a clever soul who realized fruit could be nestled into the top of a cake if placed at the bottom of the pan first (followed by the cake batter, followed by a flip of the pan after baking).  And who knew: prunes, not pineapples, were the first fruit to grace upside down cakes.

My favorite pineapple story comes from our honeymoon.  Through a travel agent we booked several days at an all-inclusive resort in Hawaii.  The first morning we ordered fresh pineapple from room service.  It was so delicious we ordered more every morning thereafter, enjoyed on our private balcony as we gazed out to the Pacific.  But at check-out, my jaw dropped when I saw every one of those (overpriced) breakfasts on my bill.  I promptly asked the hotel manager to look into it and he goes, “Oh, that all-inclusive package your travel agent booked was discontinued years ago.  You have to pay for the breakfasts now.  Might want to take her back an updated brochure”.  Whoops.

Del Monte’s “Rubyglow” pineapple

Speaking of pricey pineapple, a new spin on the tropical fruit will set you back almost $400.  Say that again, Dave.  Okay, you’ll pay $400 for a pineapple if you really want to.  One of Del Monte’s unique “Rubyglow” pineapples costs that much (and yes, I did say one).  Those who have already indulged say the only difference is the lack of bitter aftertaste you get with a regular pineapple.  Otherwise, you’re paying more for the distinctive look (and the fancy box) than you are for the fruit inside.  My first thought when I saw the photo: the Rubyglow looks like pineapple and ham all in one food.

At the start of this post I was stuck on “berry”.  Now I’m stuck on “berry expensive”.  $400 for a piece of fruit is bonkers.  I’ll never pay it.  For my hard-earned dollars I’ll take forty overpriced piña coladas instead.

Some content sourced from the Medium.com article, “Top 10 Sweetest Fruits”, the CNN Business article, “$400 for one pineapple: The rise of luxury fruit”, and
Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Unknown's avatar

Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

24 thoughts on “Berry Expensive”

  1. I didn’t know how pineapple rated on a sweetness scale, but being #2 makes sense, considering who beat it out. I’m a bit peeved on your behalf that you had to pay for breakfast at an all-inclusive resort. My mother didn’t bake ham with pineapple rings but did make pineapple upside down cake. Haven’t had one in years, wonder if I’d think it was too sweet now?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I need to try a mango, Ally, just to see if I’d like the taste. I’m not really a fan of tropical fruits besides pineapple (guava, no; papaya, no) but I’ll try anything once. As for the cake, I already know it wouldn’t be appealing to my adult/refined tastes. I’m just not a fan of fruit + cake.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. $400 for a pineapple. Wow. Also, that is SUCH a bummer about the discontinued “all inclusive.” I’d be rather ticked with your travel agent for not keeping up to date. This: prunes, not pineapples, were the first fruit to grace upside down cakes. Haha! Shocker. 😛

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The honeymoon story is one we laugh about now (among several others). We were so young and naive back then. Prunes were kind of a nightmare childhood breakfast food for me. My dad loved them so my mother would add them to our plates regularly (and there was no saying “no” to Mom). They’re even less appealing to me as a cake topper!

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Pineapple in Hawaii is so much better than what you get on the mainland. I’ll never forget the rich taste, even after all these years. The same can be said with having a glass of Guinness in Ireland.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. My mom would put ANYTHING on cottage cheese (sweet or savory) and call it a side salad. I only came to appreciate cottage cheese as an adult. Pineapple upside-down cake? Never 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  7. I start most every day with a big bowl of fruit with enough grape nuts to call it a bowl of cereal. Today included banana, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raisins, apple, orange, and pineapple. I cannot believe you can have dessert for breakfast and call it healthy!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I was happy to see raisins on your list of fruits; a most underappreciated food. Raisin Bran never worked for me because the flakes always got soggy. Grape Nuts hold up better. Sounds delicious!

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I did not know that pineapple was a berry. That is a pretty big blunder by your travel agent ha. Strawberries are my favorite berries and boy do they taste like candy right now! They are berry expensive because Whole Foods is selling them for $7.99 on sale for $3.99.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We never used that travel agent again (and back then you always used a travel agent). Yes, strawberry season is heavenly, and fleeting. Anything on sale at Whole Foods would suggest customers aren’t willing to pay full price right now. The same just happened with Haagen-Dazs at our local market. Our jaws dropped when we saw the “buy-one-get-one” sign. We promptly loaded up our basket 🙂

      Like

  9. Well, I didn’t know all those tidbits about pineapple Dave. 🙂
    I like it too, but I just buy pineapple in the can since it’s just me eating it. I have had it with cottage cheese too, but was not a fan of pineapple on pizza, baked ham or stuffed into a pineapple upside down cake. My mom mixed pineapple chunks and marshmallows with chopped cabbage to make a tasty coleslaw.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I was about to say “What?” with the pineapple-and-cabbage cole slaw but I think you unearthed a memory of something similar. It sounds like a bizarre combination but I actually think it was pretty good. “Tidbits” – ha. I wonder if Dole trademarked the word because I can see it right there on the can 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I thought I’d throw “tidbits” in there to see if you caught it. 🙂 I used to love ambrosia salad and my mom made that quite a bit when there was fresh fruit in season, but I did like the pineapple coleslaw too. The salad dressing (or maybe coleslaw dressing) made the marshmallows puffier and as a kid, you could forget you were eating a vegetable. I never got to say “no” to any type of food when I was young. I had my plate in front of me and “eat it or no dessert!” I was allowed a little wiggle room with chicken livers and Brussels sprouts as my mom made them for my father – his favorites. I like the tidbits better than the chunks, slices or crushed. I just Googled “Dole Pineapple Tidbits” and Kroger sells them too.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. This was an interesting learning experience, like so many of your posts. I do love pineapple, especially fresh in tropical places. I didn’t realize about the sugar content though.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. I recall reading once that pineapple contains a chemical that aids digestion. Which was probably helpful when you got the hotel bill you write about.

    Mrs JP has a family recipe that uses pineapple in a sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving.

    Now you have me pining for a fresh (not canned) pineapple.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The fact I was a newlywed on my honeymoon also aided in digesting that unexpected hotel bill. It’s a long-ago story which brings a laugh now, if not back when it happened. But I’ll still swear it was the best pineapple I’ve ever had (ditto the Guinness I had at the brewery in Dublin). Makes me want to go back to Hawaii just to have another taste.

      Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.