Pineapples & Pina Colada

Photo credit:www.thehindu.com & www.thephotowali.wordpress.com
Memory tags: Biting into the dripping sweetness of a freshly quartered succulent pineapple on a bamboo skewer on NH 39, half way up to Kohima.

It is that time of the year again when mangoes give way to pineapples. So if you are on NH 39 from Dimapur to Kohima or NH 40 from Guwahati to Shillong, a mosaic of green and gold fruit spiked with a rosette of silver grey leaves weighs down bamboo shelves or rafters greets you from roadside stalls. Or should you be walking down to Laitumkrah Bazzar in Shillong under monsoon laden skies, you’ll find them being tossed out of mini trucks as fast as buyers can snap them up. I am transported back in time as I give into the dripping sweetness of a freshly quartered succulent pineapple on a bamboo skewer. From its home in southern Brazil and Paraguay the pineapple travelled with human beings throughout South America and into North America making landfall in the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico. It was on the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe that Columbus in 1493 on “discovered” the pineapple on his second voyage to America. Obsessed with the misconception, that he had reached India, Columbus called the pineapple “piña de Indias”. The “pina” was an obvious reference to the context that came nearest to this new strange fruit in Columbus’s memory, the pine cone. Long before the Oxford English Dictionary treated us to etymology that related pineapple and pine cones the fruit itself had become part Columbian Exchange (after “Christopher Columbus discovered the New World” in the 15th century) along with a host of other produce and diseases between the New and Old Worlds. So in the 21st century Brazil, Philippines, Thailand, Costa Rica, Indonesia, India, China, Nigeria, Mexico, Vietnam , Taiwan and of course Hawaii are major producers of this fruit.

The fruit that the famous 18th century botanist Philip Miller named Ananas comosus paid tribute to the original name “nanas” in the Tupi/Guarani language. The pineapple belongs to the Bromelioideae sub family of plants in which the foliage generally forms a rosette where water is caught and stored. Many forest dwelling animals use this unusual pool for sustenance and livelihood. The stalk we cut away from the bottom of the fruit supported a mass of individual flowers and bracts that grow into coalesced berries arranged in two helices of 8 and 13 which are Fibonacci numbers! Quite a mouthful that we so blissfully bite into! Whereas most members of this family are epiphytes, the pineapple is terrestrial and lends itself so well to commercial cultivation that the total world production averages about 8,300,000 metric tons annually.

If we are talking pineapples, can the piña, pineapple + colada, strained be faraway? This official beverage of Puerto Rico is rum cocktail in an ice cold sea of cream of coconut and pineapple juice topped with pineapple wedge and a lushcious maraschino cherry . But the real cherry that I found and cannot but garnish this piece are the words from the Pina Colada song by Rupert Holmes !

"Escape (The Piña Colada Song)"
I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long

Like a worn out recording of a favorite song

So while she lay there sleepin' I read the paper in bed

And in the personal columns, there was this letter I read


If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain

If you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape

Then I'm the love that you've looked for, write to me and escape


I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean

But me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine

So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad

And though I'm nobody's poet, I thought it wasn't half bad


Yes, I like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne

I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon and cut through all this red tape

At a bar called O'Malley's where we'll plan our escape


So I waited with high hopes and she walked in the place

I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face

It was my own lovely lady and she said, "Aw, it's you."

Then we laughed for a moment and I said, "I never knew."


That you like piña coladas and gettin' caught in the rain

And the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne

If you like making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape

You're the lady I've looked for, come with me and escape


If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain

If you like making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape

Then I'm the love that you've looked for, write to me and escape


Yes I like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain

I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne

I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon and cut through all this red tape

Main resources:

1. Wikipedia
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
3. "Pineapple Facts" from CookingPineapple.com.
4. www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rupertholmes/escapethepiacoladasong.html