Interesting Facts

Public Health England is considering including foods which have at least one portion of fruit or veg to their 5-a-day recommendation. (This would mean ham and pineapple pizza could count as part of a healthy diet, along with tinned soups and tinned fruit. I wonder if black forest gateau will count. After all, it has cherries in it.)

The English word pineapple was first recorded in 1398, when it was used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now called pine cones). (When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit they called them pineapples (first recorded in 1664) because of their resemblance to what is now known as the pine cone.   The term pine cone was first recorded in 1694, and was used to replace the original meaning of pineapple.   Words change, their meaning changes, their usage changes, and that's why you can never stop learning.)

The pineapple wasn't known in Europe until 1493, when Christopher Columbus landed on the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe and  the sailors ate, enjoyed and recorded the curious new fruit. (But the pineapple wasn't cultivated successfully in European hothouses, and pineapple pits, until around 1720. It became associated with great wealth, and you can see the pineapple motif on many historic buildings and in art and carvings etc.  It was so highly regarded that King Charles posed with his gardener John Rose, as he presented King Charles with the first pineapple grown in England.)