Pineapples have become one of the world's favorite food items. As we learned from The Pineapple King of Fruits by Fran Beauman and Pineapples Culture by Gary Okihiro, the fruit was a near instant hit because of its extremely sweet taste. and the fact that it is not like other normal fruits. As made visible in the picture above, pineapples do not look very appetizing or attractive to eat, but once the rough outer shell is cut through, the fruit on the inside is easily on of the best fruits in the world. The result of pineapples finding favor taste wise throughout the world, is that its production has become a very large and profitable industry, and the pineapples that are eaten today are grown all around the world. As of relatively recently, as in the during the 21st Century, pineapple consumption and production has grown and is now an important part of Costa Rican society and the economy.
Pineapples are very important to Costa Rican society, especially food wise. It has been the most common fruit I have noticed available during breakfast time. It was also the first fruit that my host family offered me my first breakfast, and it still continues to this point. Based on the frequency with which my host family buys pineapples and the speed at which it is eaten, I can come to the conclusion that pineapple is one my family's favorite foods. Every weekend on Sunday my Tica mom buys two pinapples from the feria or farmers market, but they are generally both eaten away by Wednesday dinner time. The fruit is served for breakfast, but after asking them about how they use the fruit, they take some of it to work and school, and in the case of my tica dad he loves to make smoothies with the fresh pineapple. According to my host family, pineapples are used different ways in Costa Rican food. You can have them served in slices as normal, or you can buy them in various pastries, in smoothies, on pizza, salads and even in jam. I have noticed that my tico family buys and uses a lot of pineapple jam with their bread for breakfast or for the cookies around coffee time.
According to my host dad there are also different types of pineapples. Some of the pineapples include the Criolla type, the dorado and the Hawaiian. Although these are the different available types of pineapples in Costa Rica, my tico dad has acknowledged the fact that the Hawaiian pineapples are the most common and that it is the type of pineapple most purchased and kept in the house. He claims that the Hawaiian brand of pineapple is so common and popular because it is the most widely produced by the new large scale fruit companies. The pineapple industry has become a large source of income in Costa Rica, and people have realized its new importance. My host family told me during discussion about the fruit, that pineapples porduction is important for the economy. That being said my family likes to buy pineapples because they are local grown. Implied importance of the pineapple industry and pride in local grown pineapples means that pineapples are developing a new cultural significance, one that is higher than bananas. When I compare it to coffee and bananas my Tico dad was quick to distinguish that the value of pineapples was not as high as coffee, but definitely better than bananas.
Pineapples in Costa Rica are used and incorporated in many different products and sold in many different ways. Similar to the rest of the world, one of the main ways to buy pineapples is in the whole fruit form from the grocery or market. The picture above shows me at Mas por Menos, the local grocery store, holding a whole pineapple produced by Dole, a large international fruit producing company. It was also possible to purchase canned pineapples, but they didn't seem to be very popular. As mentioned earlier pineapple is sold in pastries, as a jam, in smoothies and in other mixed fruit drinks. The fruit drinks and smoothies seem to be one of the more popular ways that they are sold outside of the whole fruit. It was interesting however, that in the grocery, and it was relatively large, there was not a large selection of fresh pineapples. As in the picture, this pineapple looks very green, similar to 8 or 9 others that were available to choose from. Pineapples are more widely sold in the fruit stores and by the fruit vendors on the side of the roads. They tend have the better looking and more pineapples for probably cheaper.
Compared to the pineapples culture in the United States, for one all the available fruits are available in groceries. Since pineapples are not grown in the US, they are imported to the groceries and so there are no vendors or small fruit stores that have sweeter or better pineapples available. As a result in the US pineapples are also more expensive in the US and eaten more among the upper class and in the middle class, where people have the money to purchase the fruit. In Costa Rica, because production is local and widespread, the fruit is a lot cheaper and enjoyed by more different social classes. As a result pineapple is more important in Costa Rica than the United States because it is available everyday and is therefore more entrenched in culture whereas in the US pineapples is more of a novelty or specialty fruit from the tropics, although there are many products with pineapples. The majority of the those pineapples are processed and not the same as the fresh pineapples that are eaten in the Costa Rica.
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