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Old 01-08-2007, 03:36 PM posted to rec.gardens
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Default Symbolism of the Pineapple

THE PINEAPPLE
has served as both a food and a symbol throughout the human history of
the Americas. Originally unique to the Western Hemisphere, the fruit
was a favorite of the Carib Indians who lived on islands in the sea
that still bears their name.

INDIAN MIGRATION and COMMERCE...
The presence of pineapples on Caribbean islands was not a natural
event, but the result of centuries of indian migration and commerce.
Great dugout canoe navigators, the maritime tribes explored, raided
and traded across a vast expanse of tropical oceans, seas and river
systems. The herbaceous plant they called "anana," or "excellent
fruit", originally evolved in the island areas of what is now Brazil
and Paraguay, and was widely transplanted and cultivated. Highly
regarded for its intense sweetness, the "excellent fruit" was a staple
of indian feasts and rites related to tribal affirmation. It was also
used to produce Indian wine.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS...
The first encounter between a European and a pineapple occured in
November, 1493, when Columbus, on his second voyage to the Caribbean
region, anchored in a cove on the volcanic island of Guadaloupe and
went ashore to inspect a deserted Carib village. There, amidst the
jungle folage and wooden pillars spiraled with serpant carvings, his
crew came upon cook pots filled with human body parts. Nearby were
piles of vegetables and fruits, including pineapples. The European
sailors ate, enjoyed and recorded the curious fruit which had an
abrasive, segmented exterior like a pine cone and a firm interior pulp
like an apple.

RENAISSANCE EUROPE...
The Europe to which Columbus returned with his discoveries was a
civilization in great need of common sweets. Sugar, refined from cane
was a rare commodity imported at great cost from the middle east and
orient. Fresh fruit was also a rare item. Orchard-grown fruit being
available in only limited varieties for breif periods of time.

PINEAPPLE: TREAT of KINGS...
Reports, and later samples of the New World's pineapple... whose ripe
yellow pulp exploded natural sweetness when chewed... made the fruit
an item of celebrity and curiosity for royal gourmet and
horticulturist alike. Despite the efforts by European gardeners, it
was nearley two centuries before they were able to perfect a hothouse
method for growing the pineapple plant. Well into the 1600's, the
pineapple remained so uncommon and coveted that King Charles I I of
England posed for an official portrait in an act then symbolic of
royal privilege... receiving a pineapple as a gift.

PINEAPPLES and COLONIAL AMERICA...
Across the Atlantic, the pineapple took on other symbolic meanings in
England's American colonies. The colonies were then a land of small,
primitive towns and settlements where homes served as the hubs of most
community activity.
Visiting was the primary means of entertainment and news. The concept
of hospitality, the warmth, charm and style with which guests were
taken into the home, was a central element of the society's daily
emotional life.

CREATIVE FOOD DISPLAY in COLONIAL AMERICA...
Creative food display, the main entertainment during a formal home
visit, was a means by which a woman declared both her personality and
her family's status. Within the bounds of their family's means,
hostesses sought to outdo each other in the creation of memorable,
fantasy-like dining room scenes. At such feasts, tabletops resembled
small mountain ranges of tiered and pedestaled foodstuffs webbed in
sugar, studded with china figurines, festooned with flowers and
interwoven with garlands of pine and laurel. Dinners were
extravaganzas of visual delights, novel tastes, new discoveries and
congenial conversation that went on for hours.

RARE PINEAPPLE; KING of COLONIAL FRUITS...
Dried, candied and jellied were the major attractions of the
community's appetite and dining practices, the pineapple was the true
celebrity. Its rarity, expense, reputation and striking visual
attractiveness made it the ultimate exotic fruit. It was the pineapple
that came to literally crown the most important feasts, often held
aloft on special pedestals as the pinnacle of the table's central food
mound.

THE COLONIAL PINEAPPLE TRADE...
Ships brought in preserved pineapples from Caribbean islands as
expensive sweetmeats, pineapple chunks candied, glazed and packed in
sugar. The actual whole fruit was even more costly and difficult to
obtain. Wooden ship travel in the tropics was hot, humid and slow,
often rotting pineapple cargoes before they could be landed. Only the
fastest ships and best weather conditions could deliver ripe,
wholesome pineapples to the confectionery shops of cities like Boston,
Philadelphia, Annapolis and Williamsburg.
A hostesses's ability to have a pineapple for an important dining
event said as much about her rank as it did about her resourcefulness,
given that the street trade in available fresh pineapples could be as
brisk as it was bitchy. So sought after were the prickly fruits that
colonial confectioners sometimes rented them to households by the day.
Later, the same fruit was sold to other, more affluent clients who
actually ate it. Hostesses would have gone to great lengths to conceal
the fact that the pineapple that was the visual apogee of their table
display and a central topic of their guests' conversation was only
rented.

PINEAPPLE as ARTISTIC MOTIF...
It is hardly surprising that this communal symbol of friendship and
hospitality also became a favorite motif of architects, artisans and
craftsmen throughout the colonies. They announced the hospitality of a
mansion with carved wood or molded motar pineapples on its main gate
posts, huge copper and brass pineapples in the weather vanes of their
most important public buildings. They sculpted pineapples into door
lintels; stenciled pineapples on wall canvas mats; wove pineapples
into tablecloths, napkins, carpets and draperies; and cast pineapples
into metal hot plates. There were whole pineapples carved of wood;
pineapples executed in the finest china klins; pineapples painted onto
the backs of chairs and tops of chests.

During the last century, the art of food display centered around the
pineapple has faded to a quaint craft now largely associated with the
making of certain kinds of Christmas decorations. These holiday
fabrications are one of the few vestiges of an era when all life
literally revolved around the dining room table; a less complicated
era that left us the enduring icon of the colonial pineapple, a truly
American fruit symbolizing our founding society's abiding commitment
to hospitality as well as its fondest memories of families, friends
and good times.

Jack's Florida Bromeliads
a href="http://www.freewebs.com/jacksbromeliads/"Visit My Website/a

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