Pina

Pineapple in Costa Rica is definitely eaten throughout the day and in many different forms.  From observation and speaking with my family, pineapple can be seen as a raw fruit, a juice, fruit salad, desserts, marmalade, yogurt, milk shakes, smoothies, etc.  These pineapple foods are not just only eaten for breakfast, but throughout the day, in all meals.  Many people are accustomed to eating fruit after lunch and dinner, as a dessert, because they realize that pineapple and other fruits are important for health reasons and are a source of beneficial vitamins.  This is a change from the past, because people are more aware of the fact that they can use the pineapple in many different forms, not just raw.  I attribute this to the fact that Costa Ricans are more in touch with what they eat and they understand that foods can be prepared and eaten at different times and in different forms.  This also ties in to how pineapples are economically important to Costa Rica, because it is an export crop, which leads to the dependency model.  Import nations (global north - US) are dependent on the export nations (global south – CR), but at the same time export nations are dependent on the global north for economic reasons.  Hence the reason why monocrops cause so many problems, because the dependency on that one crop is so large, that when disease strikes, the economy drops significantly. 

The readings about pineapple discussed symbolism and significance, but primarily in the eyes of the US.  The inferiority of the tropics to the temperature zone was personified through the pineapple.  When the pineapple was started being grown in hothouses, Europeans believed that had an (artificial) Eden, allowing them to make their own wealth without dependence on the tropics.  Although pineapple used to signify wealth and status in the tropics, it seems as though there is no connotation with the pineapple.  The reading, however, does describe the pineapple as a symbol of hospitality in the US, but fails to describe its symbol in the tropics today.  When I asked my Tica mom about significance of the pineapple, she gave me a weird look as if “it’s just a food that we eat and export, nada mas.”  I explained that in the United States it is sometimes referred to as the symbol of hospitality, which she thought was weird, but also made her think about expressions that use the word pina.

·      When there are many different varieties of breadà  “una pina de pan”

·      If you go to the bank and there are a lot of peopleà “hay una pina de gente”

·      When a lot of people arrive by car/bus/etc. à “todos a pinados”

·      “Hechos una pina”

She had no explanation as to what the relationship is between the pineapple and a lot of people/things.  I found this interesting, because there are a lot of expressions in the United States that we simply cannot explain.  Even though the reading doesn’t mention any current significance of the pineapple in the tropics, I’m very interested in knowing whether there just isn’t any significance now or whether the above expressions symbolize something greater than just a lot of people/things.