Latest / Ridiculous History / Pineapples In Europe, Part 2: People Literally Rented Pineapples to Impress their Friends

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Pineapples In Europe, Part 2: People Literally Rented Pineapples to Impress their Friends · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. For fans of Lost, the
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Speaker 1: television show, you might enjoy this previously on Ridiculous History.
0:41
Speaker 1: This is This is part two of our episode on
0:45
Speaker 1: King Pine a k a. The Pineapple a k a.
0:49
Speaker 1: One of our favorite fruits on the show. Shout out
0:53
Speaker 1: to super producer Casey Pegram, guest producer Andrew Howard. They
1:00
Speaker 1: called me, they called me Ben or the Pineapple Kid.
1:03
Speaker 1: I'm going by that. No, no, the Pineapple Kid. I
1:06
Speaker 1: like that. You should rob a bank. It's probably you
1:09
Speaker 1: have probably had to capitalize on this whole mask wearing situation.
1:12
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be around for terribly much longer, hopefully,
1:15
Speaker 1: and rob a bank. I'm surprised there haven't been more
1:17
Speaker 1: like wild West style heists. You know, everyone would just
1:20
Speaker 1: blend right in, you just walk right out of the street,
1:22
Speaker 1: and I would know I did. Uh. I did a
1:25
Speaker 1: video for brain Stuff back in the day about the
1:28
Speaker 1: economics of robbing a bank. It's pretty depressing. I talked
1:32
Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, yeah, you don't make much. You don't
1:35
Speaker 1: make much money. Per heist. It's uh, it's not the
1:39
Speaker 1: best business to be in. So bank robbing now it
1:42
Speaker 1: would be like kind of like spoken word, you gotta
1:46
Speaker 1: be in it for the experience. Well that's what that's
1:49
Speaker 1: what you gotta do. Like you gotta think bigger Ben,
1:51
Speaker 1: you got just Robert Bank. You gotta like do on
1:53
Speaker 1: Ocean's eleven style casino hist or robbed like the Museum
1:56
Speaker 1: of Natural History steal the Declaration of Independence. That be
2:00
Speaker 1: a good ridiculous history style heist. Yeah, yeah, Now heist
2:03
Speaker 1: in a museum I'm on board with. And of course
2:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some folks in the audience today, Noel
2:10
Speaker 1: who are remembering that old quote, if you really want
2:14
Speaker 1: to make money, don't rob a bank, start one or
2:16
Speaker 1: something like that, if you really want to rob people.
2:19
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but what we can remember is our
2:24
Speaker 1: earlier episode on the mania for pineapples that swept Europe
2:31
Speaker 1: right in the fifteen through sixteenth century. Specifically, I think
2:37
Speaker 1: we were both surprised to learn that the pineapple at
2:41
Speaker 1: one time in Europe costs the equivalent of eight thousand
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Speaker 1: dollars each today, right, that was the number I think insane.
2:50
Speaker 1: I mean truly. Even the royals would look at it
2:54
Speaker 1: as an absolute delicacy, a treat only for the most
2:57
Speaker 1: special of occasions. Uh, you're right, it's ingle fruit was
3:00
Speaker 1: worth thousands of pounds. As we know, pounds have always
3:03
Speaker 1: been more than a dollar. Yeah, so I think the
3:07
Speaker 1: number you said nails it, um. But these things were well, remember,
3:12
Speaker 1: let's just backtrack, ever so slightly previously on ridiculous history.
3:16
Speaker 1: You know, it all started with one pineapple. I was
3:18
Speaker 1: talking to some friends last night about how, you know,
3:22
Speaker 1: just that one pineapple made it, and they're like, well,
3:24
Speaker 1: how did it keep from getting too ripe? And that's
3:26
Speaker 1: exactly right. The other ones that that came across, you know,
3:29
Speaker 1: on that journey with Columbus, clearly we're already too ripe
3:32
Speaker 1: in the first place and just rotted and became the
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Speaker 1: sticky morass of goo. And I'm imagining that the one
3:38
Speaker 1: that made it was probably really green or unripe, you know.
3:42
Speaker 1: And then it like took the time of that voyage
3:44
Speaker 1: to ripen because I was a big dommy and I
3:46
Speaker 1: was little way at ice. Right, No, they didn't have ice.
3:48
Speaker 1: He had to go like the Arctic circle to get ice.
3:51
Speaker 1: So the best they could do is keep them in
3:52
Speaker 1: a cool, dry place, which would have been the you know,
3:54
Speaker 1: the hold of the ship. But yeah, that one pineapple
3:58
Speaker 1: started this whole pineap apple craze because King Ferdinand of
4:02
Speaker 1: Spain went absolutely bonkers for it, and the idea of
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Speaker 1: having a pineapple that was about the best anyone could
4:08
Speaker 1: hope for. And they would get like traded around, paraded
4:12
Speaker 1: down the streets for events and things like that, and
4:15
Speaker 1: it got to the point where there became this whole,
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Speaker 1: like weird side hustle behind pineapples, had nothing to do
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Speaker 1: with cooking or eating or fruit or anything. Yes, so
4:27
Speaker 1: we see this happen often in the world of luxury
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Speaker 1: goods and material flexes. Something starts out and the upper
4:35
Speaker 1: echelons of society that's where it becomes cool, right and desirable,
4:41
Speaker 1: and then people in lower rungs of society, right like
4:45
Speaker 1: well to do merchants, for instance, learn about the upper
4:49
Speaker 1: classes love of a specific thing, and they say, well,
4:52
Speaker 1: I want to get in on the party. I want
4:54
Speaker 1: a Rolex Rolls Royce or a pine apple. I think
4:58
Speaker 1: those are the examples we used earlier, And that's exactly
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Speaker 1: what happens here. There was this crazy hectic trade in pineapples,
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Speaker 1: but not selling pineapples, because a lot of people couldn't
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Speaker 1: afford to own a pineapple. Uh. Instead, the trade centered
5:15
Speaker 1: on renting pineapples. That's that's what we're gonna talk about today.
5:19
Speaker 1: We're gonna see how this came to be. When last
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Speaker 1: we left off with the Saga of the pineapple, Europeans
5:27
Speaker 1: were trying, without much luck, to grow the fruit themselves.
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Speaker 1: Pineapples need a tropical environment, and Europe is famously mostly
5:37
Speaker 1: not a tropical place. But there's there is something interesting.
5:42
Speaker 1: In the hundreds, some folks in England figured out how
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Speaker 1: to grow a pineapple. And that might sound wild to
5:51
Speaker 1: anybody who's familiar with British weather, right famously gray, and
5:56
Speaker 1: there's a stereotype of it being bleak and dreary and
5:59
Speaker 1: so on. But it appears that some people in England
6:04
Speaker 1: actually pulled it off. They had to be gardeners that
6:08
Speaker 1: were either very very wealthy already or very very good
6:11
Speaker 1: at garden. Yes. And the man that may have possessed
6:15
Speaker 1: one or both of those, uh certain sets of skills
6:18
Speaker 1: was this guy named John Rose, who is often incorrectly
6:22
Speaker 1: connected with growing the very first pineapple in England. Because
6:27
Speaker 1: there's a painting by Charles the Second Um, which he
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Speaker 1: commissioned in sixteen, which shows John Rose presenting the King
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Speaker 1: with this, you know, prized homegrown pineapple. But it turns
6:43
Speaker 1: out that as often as the case in these sorts
6:46
Speaker 1: of paintings depicting some sort of ceremonial pomp and circumstances
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Speaker 1: type thing, um, the narrative is a little bit forced.
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Speaker 1: The pineapple that is in the painting, which was in
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Speaker 1: fact based on a real thing that happened, was one
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Speaker 1: that was imported from the Bahamas and then ripened in
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Speaker 1: England by Rose. Oh and here here's why those pineapples
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Speaker 1: survived the journey at all. I was thinking about this
7:12
Speaker 1: after we recorded Episode one. A pineapple takes about twenty
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Speaker 1: eight months to grow and then another six months to ripen,
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Speaker 1: so you've got a pretty long runway there. Okay, Well,
7:26
Speaker 1: I just have to say I'm not trying to nag
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Speaker 1: our guy John Rose here, but doesn't letting a pineapple
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Speaker 1: ripen just mean like leaving it alone and doing nothing? Well,
7:36
Speaker 1: it's funny. A lot of it would depend on whether
7:39
Speaker 1: or not he had one of my new favorite fancy
7:42
Speaker 1: buildings and orange jury, why not? Why not? Why not
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Speaker 1: a pineapple a toorium or a pineapple areum or dome
7:51
Speaker 1: Because it started with oranges makes sense. So I like
7:56
Speaker 1: a pineapple aream, I like that rolls off the tongue,
7:59
Speaker 1: but an orange is exactly what it sounds like. These
8:03
Speaker 1: were buildings that were you'd usually find on wealthy, kind
8:09
Speaker 1: of trendy estates, and they existed entirely to be citrus
8:15
Speaker 1: fruit greenhouses. They would protect citrus fruits from frost and
8:20
Speaker 1: snow during the winter months. But the issue with orangeries,
8:25
Speaker 1: according to Johanna Lawson Higgins from the Royal Botanical Garden
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Speaker 1: in Edinburgh, the problem with them is that even these
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Speaker 1: custom built buildings did not provide enough heat and light
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Speaker 1: for the pineapple, and that's why it wasn't until seventeen fourteen,
8:43
Speaker 1: maybe seventeen sixteen, when one gardener, a Dutchman named Henry Talende,
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Speaker 1: was able to grow a pineapple in England for his boss,
8:53
Speaker 1: Matthew Decker. And Matthew Decker was so excited about this
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Speaker 1: that he commissioned a painting and like in seventeen twenty
9:02
Speaker 1: years later, he says, you know what we need a
9:05
Speaker 1: painting of Henry growing that pineapple. But you know, um,
9:11
Speaker 1: being of the wealthy class, who knows, he may have
9:13
Speaker 1: made it look like he grew the pineapple himself. H exactly.
9:18
Speaker 1: Looks can be deceiving, especially when they're committed in like
9:21
Speaker 1: really high quality you know, bespoke oil paintings. And this guy,
9:25
Speaker 1: I mean, he really does deserve props are coming up
9:28
Speaker 1: with what was ultimately a very elaborate method that involved
9:32
Speaker 1: so many variables and keeping them, you know, balanced perfectly.
9:36
Speaker 1: Soil temperature had to be maintained at the exact correct temperature. Um,
9:40
Speaker 1: he designed these hot houses, which is I think it's
9:43
Speaker 1: the same as a greenhouse spend, but I hope any
9:46
Speaker 1: botanists out there let us know. But they had these
9:49
Speaker 1: pits that were lined with pebbles, and on top of
9:53
Speaker 1: the pebbles, he had manure Nature's fertilizer or you know,
9:58
Speaker 1: just fertilizer sat on a bed of this bark called
10:04
Speaker 1: Tanner's bark, which is oak bark that's soaked in water.
10:07
Speaker 1: So he thought all this through really really specifically. Then
10:11
Speaker 1: there's more. Then he had a pot that contained the
10:15
Speaker 1: like you know, like a pot of soil that contained
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Speaker 1: the pineapple plant. But here's the thing. Manure wasn't enough.
10:22
Speaker 1: It it actually created a lot of heat in the
10:27
Speaker 1: early stages of experimentation. That's why he needed the bark
10:30
Speaker 1: to come in and regulate the heat over time though
10:32
Speaker 1: the wet soaked oak bark, and it would keep the
10:36
Speaker 1: temperature of the soil at this exact right range that
10:40
Speaker 1: kind of mimicked that you would find in these more
10:43
Speaker 1: tropical regions. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, uh, it's
10:47
Speaker 1: kind of like keeping tropical fish or an octopus, you
10:52
Speaker 1: know what I mean, or a you know, a saltwater
10:54
Speaker 1: fish of some sort. They need these very specific environmental conditions.
10:57
Speaker 1: I do want to say hothouse and greenhouse are used interchangeably.
11:02
Speaker 1: There's one big difference though, I think technically a greenhouse
11:06
Speaker 1: is only warmed by the sun, but a hothouse uses
11:10
Speaker 1: these other methods like maybe the uh the chemical reactions
11:14
Speaker 1: of manure or furnaces, stuff like that to heat the
11:18
Speaker 1: produce of the plants inside. And they tried a couple
11:22
Speaker 1: of different approaches to UH to grow pineapples in England.
11:29
Speaker 1: Salinda's method, while involved, is pretty impressive. It's got a
11:33
Speaker 1: mcgeiver vibe. But it was also pretty expensive. A lot
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Speaker 1: of people tried to get in the pineapple game by
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Speaker 1: building what they called pine eery's. Personally, I like pineapple
11:45
Speaker 1: aream but you know, they didn't ask us at the time.
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Speaker 1: A lot of people are in this game, and it
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Speaker 1: grew very expensive. The Gentleman's magazine of seventeen sixty four
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Speaker 1: estimated it would cost you a hundred and fifty pounds
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Speaker 1: the equivalent of twenty eight thousand pounds today to build
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Speaker 1: a hothouse to cover your maintenance cost. Operation costs to
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Speaker 1: buy the pineapple plants themselves, and it was pretty risky
12:13
Speaker 1: because you weren't guaranteed to get a return on your investment.
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Speaker 1: And also a lot of people accidentally killed their pineapples
12:22
Speaker 1: because of the ways they tried to heat them. Right,
12:26
Speaker 1: uh and and I don't know then, would you consider
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Speaker 1: this an operation that quickly was able to you know
12:31
Speaker 1: what they say in the corporate world scale, you know
12:34
Speaker 1: what I mean, like or or would you know that
12:36
Speaker 1: would be really expensive operation? Right? Yeah, And it's a
12:40
Speaker 1: long term investment, so it will take several years for
12:45
Speaker 1: the pineapple fruit to bloom if you don't kill it,
12:48
Speaker 1: and then of course they will take another six months
12:50
Speaker 1: to ripen. People killed their pineapples pretty often. Actually, they
12:55
Speaker 1: tried to heat some of these glasshouses with furnaces that
12:59
Speaker 1: were in side the building, but the fumes from the
13:02
Speaker 1: furnaces would kill or damage the plants. And then they
13:07
Speaker 1: tried firewalls, which sound cool. Uh, the the idea is, well,
13:12
Speaker 1: they sound hot. Right there we go out of the
13:14
Speaker 1: ideas that hot hot. You would get a stove or
13:18
Speaker 1: furnace and you would use the hot air rising from
13:22
Speaker 1: that to like run along the wall to heat the
13:25
Speaker 1: wall of the hot house or the pinery. But the
13:28
Speaker 1: problem was you needed someone constantly they're stirring the coal
13:33
Speaker 1: stoke in the So the term firewall started with that
13:37
Speaker 1: and not necessarily a safety barrier and buildings that would
13:40
Speaker 1: prevent fired from burning through a wall or did I
13:44
Speaker 1: make that use of the term up entire Obviously it
13:46
Speaker 1: also is a computer internet safety thing, But I always
13:50
Speaker 1: think of a firewall as being a buildings you know,
13:53
Speaker 1: code spec type thing that that keeps fires from like
13:56
Speaker 1: penetrating from one portion of the building to the other
13:59
Speaker 1: sort of does the compartments and the Titanic that like
14:02
Speaker 1: totally didn't work. Yeah, that's correct, that's that's the that's
14:06
Speaker 1: where the computing term firewall comes from. These are these
14:11
Speaker 1: are just something different. These are just hot balls. That's
14:14
Speaker 1: so cool though. I love that. I love it. It
14:16
Speaker 1: reminds me of sort of the way the term pineapple
14:19
Speaker 1: itself with kind of bastardized and flipped around and they're like, Okay,
14:23
Speaker 1: now it's gonna be this thing. Uh, the English language.
14:26
Speaker 1: It's like you always say, Ben, it's a it's a
14:28
Speaker 1: living language. Indeed, So okay, costly, complicated, difficult to scale upfront, right,
14:36
Speaker 1: is it worth it? You know? Is it worth the
14:40
Speaker 1: difference between trying this elaborate you know, plan to grow
14:43
Speaker 1: them domestically versus just importing them, because, like you said,
14:47
Speaker 1: there's a pretty big window. Yeah. Yeah, But if everything
14:50
Speaker 1: goes well, if you can figure out a heating and
14:53
Speaker 1: maintenance method that you can keep up long enough, then
14:57
Speaker 1: you are going to end up being pineapple tycoon. At
15:02
Speaker 1: this point, hope grown pineapple will sell for the equivalent
15:06
Speaker 1: of eleven thousand pounds today, so it's even more expensive
15:11
Speaker 1: that it wasn't when Ferdinand was first nothing on pineapples,
15:16
Speaker 1: and I thought I thought this was funny. This reminds
15:19
Speaker 1: me of organic farmers markets. The pineapples were even more
15:25
Speaker 1: desirable if they still had shoots and leaves on them,
15:28
Speaker 1: because then you would know that some some aristocrat had
15:33
Speaker 1: grown them there in Europe, so you would be you
15:37
Speaker 1: would be like, okay, so that's so wait a minute,
15:41
Speaker 1: wait minute. So the domestic pineapple became even more value
15:45
Speaker 1: than the imported pineapple. It's a more of a flex
15:49
Speaker 1: because you know, you would be like, wait, why would
15:53
Speaker 1: I wait for a pineapple to ship with sailors across
15:57
Speaker 1: the Atlantic when I could simply buy something from Earl
16:01
Speaker 1: of Sadwich. Odd Wade didn't shy, are you? I don't know,
16:04
Speaker 1: I get it's it's already. It's already kind of a weird, impulsive,
16:09
Speaker 1: you know, opulent thing, which usually involves a little bit
16:13
Speaker 1: of instant gratification. Right. You know, you don't wanna have
16:15
Speaker 1: to wait for your like fancy thing to make you
16:19
Speaker 1: feel all, you know big, You want to right now
16:22
Speaker 1: for that dopamine hit. Yeah, exactly, And this is there's
16:27
Speaker 1: a funny passage in Pineapple, a Global History by an
16:31
Speaker 1: anthropologist named cal Y O'Connor where they talk about this, Uh,
16:36
Speaker 1: they talk about this weird decision A lot of possessors
16:40
Speaker 1: of pineapple had to face. Are you going to display
16:44
Speaker 1: it to let people know how well off you are
16:47
Speaker 1: or are you gonna fold to your curiosity and eat
16:52
Speaker 1: the fruit yourself. M This was a dilemma for people
16:56
Speaker 1: because even if you're really wealthy in Europe at the time,
17:00
Speaker 1: you know, you wouldn't casually be buying a pineapple no
17:03
Speaker 1: matter who you are. It's it's a pretty significant investment.
17:07
Speaker 1: And yeah, they taste great, but if you eat it,
17:10
Speaker 1: you no longer have that flex. Yes, it actually became
17:14
Speaker 1: almost more popular to display, like think of like the
17:18
Speaker 1: the the most you know, all of the still lives
17:20
Speaker 1: and you know, fruit paintings of the time, and before
17:24
Speaker 1: you know, the pineapple is the most kind of arresting
17:27
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, unique looking of all of those,
17:30
Speaker 1: and often is the centerpiece of those kinds of displays.
17:33
Speaker 1: And it makes sense because it's quite large, so it
17:35
Speaker 1: did everything kind of crowds around it because it is
17:38
Speaker 1: in fact the king of the fruits, in the same
17:40
Speaker 1: way that Godzilla is arguably the king of the monsters.
17:42
Speaker 1: I'm I'm more of a calm guy how about you
17:44
Speaker 1: been uh, you know, I enjoy all Kaiju and one
17:49
Speaker 1: of the few people who thought Pacific Rim was great.
17:53
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? It was fantastic. I love this.
17:56
Speaker 1: I love Pacific Rim. I didn't think that was a
17:58
Speaker 1: controversial opinion. Oh yeah, I think the studios sank it,
18:03
Speaker 1: but it did so well in the Chinese market that
18:06
Speaker 1: it managed to get a sequel. I don't think Pacific
18:10
Speaker 1: Rim three is coming out, but there is a new anime,
18:13
Speaker 1: Pacific Rim Black, on Netflix, so check it out if
18:16
Speaker 1: you like. If you like me love Giant Robots and Kaiju,
18:21
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, calm Godzilla, They've both got there.
18:24
Speaker 1: Did you see the new one? I did, and I
18:27
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, it's easy to rag on anything
18:29
Speaker 1: like that is just big, dumb, fun popcorn, you know, nonsense.
18:33
Speaker 1: But I quite enjoyed it. Be I did not care
18:36
Speaker 1: for the previous one, King of the Monsters, because it
18:38
Speaker 1: was so focused on the kind of boring interpersonal relationships
18:43
Speaker 1: between the human characters, and they kind of dispensed with
18:46
Speaker 1: that entirely and gave us the monster. Like the one
18:49
Speaker 1: of the shows that I've watched on YouTube, red letter Media,
18:52
Speaker 1: these dudes do movie reviews and the show called half
18:53
Speaker 1: in the Bag. That's fantastic. They described it as like
18:56
Speaker 1: a really expensive version of like a six year old
19:00
Speaker 1: hanging as action figures together, you know, in the bathtub
19:02
Speaker 1: or something. And I was here for it. How about you? Yeah? Same?
19:06
Speaker 1: Of course, folks who know about the other show that
19:11
Speaker 1: we do stuff they want you to know. You can imagine.
19:14
Speaker 1: I had some complicated feelings when I saw that one
19:18
Speaker 1: of the main characters is a conspiracy theory podcaster, and
19:25
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I'm thinking there za, guys.
19:28
Speaker 1: But I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons.
19:32
Speaker 1: It's just a childlike thrill, and people found pineapples also thrilling.
19:39
Speaker 1: It hit them emotionally in a way that other fruits
19:43
Speaker 1: didn't because of a very simple fact. It was almost
19:51
Speaker 1: impossible for the average person to get their hands on
19:54
Speaker 1: a pineapple, but the literary world was filled with these
20:00
Speaker 1: crazy descriptions, some a little bit erotic, of how the
20:04
Speaker 1: pineapple tasted like you would you could easily go your
20:09
Speaker 1: entire life without tasting a pineapple, but reading something new
20:14
Speaker 1: every week about how amazing it was, and this just
20:19
Speaker 1: made people more hungry. On several levels for a pineapple
20:25
Speaker 1: and one other people know you had access to it.
20:27
Speaker 1: And that's where we see the rise of pineapple as decoration.
20:31
Speaker 1: I mentioned before the you know, the entrance of some
20:35
Speaker 1: fancy buildings having pineapples depicted in masonry, or when you
20:40
Speaker 1: go into some old hotels you'll see a pineapple for
20:43
Speaker 1: something like just the painting of a pineapple. I love
20:46
Speaker 1: hotel paintings, man, it's so weird. There's something to them.
20:49
Speaker 1: You're right, And it turns out actually not to blow
20:52
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna name name it, but a colleague of ours,
20:55
Speaker 1: his partner um that is, her job is to curate
20:58
Speaker 1: hotel paintings. So there's definitely like somebody think putting some
21:02
Speaker 1: thought into it. I think it depends on the type
21:04
Speaker 1: of hotel, perhaps the number of stars that it has,
21:07
Speaker 1: as to the tastefulness of said paintings. But I think
21:10
Speaker 1: the ones you're talking about, Ben are the ones that
21:11
Speaker 1: are real bargain basement and you're like, who did this
21:14
Speaker 1: and where did this come from? And why is this here?
21:17
Speaker 1: It's probably like you know, a sailboat, a single sailboat
21:20
Speaker 1: on a placid c or something like that. Yeah, or like,
21:24
Speaker 1: you know, a sad clown. Oh god, really you've seen
21:29
Speaker 1: you've seen sad clowns, and that's that would be triggering
21:32
Speaker 1: for so many people. I know. Yeah, I'm thinking of this.
21:34
Speaker 1: Uh this really creepy casino. I ended up in Vegas
21:39
Speaker 1: one time when I was at ce suh, the Consumer
21:42
Speaker 1: Electronics showcase, which was a circus circus. Surely it was
21:46
Speaker 1: circus circus if it had clown theme. Yeah, I think
21:48
Speaker 1: it was. I think that's a creepy man. I I
21:51
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. But anyway, anyway, decorations, people want you to
21:56
Speaker 1: know that, unlike the pores, they have a pineapple. Uh.
22:00
Speaker 1: So the Landed aristocracy is in kind of this, keeping
22:05
Speaker 1: up with the Jones's arms race of living a big life, right,
22:09
Speaker 1: gambling and and boozing, and then also cultivating pineapple with
22:16
Speaker 1: around the clock care and these custom built pine earys
22:20
Speaker 1: tons of cold to keep the temperature right. The cost
22:24
Speaker 1: of rearing each one was equivalent to eight thousand dollars
22:28
Speaker 1: which is probably why the price went up to eleven
22:30
Speaker 1: thousand later. Wow, like if through the life of the
22:34
Speaker 1: pineapple eight grand per apple. Yes, yes, that's wild, because
22:42
Speaker 1: this seems unsustainable this seems like a bubble, you know,
22:45
Speaker 1: like the like the tulip craze, you know something. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 1: it's I mean think about they're creating an environment that
22:51
Speaker 1: does not naturally exist in this part of the world.
22:54
Speaker 1: It's also not good for literally anything else. So it's
22:59
Speaker 1: so it comes so very expensive that eventually even the
23:04
Speaker 1: aristocrats are saying, you know, it's tremendously wasteful to grow
23:09
Speaker 1: one of these pineapples and simply eat them. Then you
23:12
Speaker 1: have new pineapples salt. And that's why they became dinner
23:17
Speaker 1: time decorations. You would just you would like go to
23:20
Speaker 1: a fancy dinner and you would see you would see
23:24
Speaker 1: a pineapple in the middle of like this very opulent
23:28
Speaker 1: fruit plate and the pineapples in the middle because you're
23:31
Speaker 1: not supposed to eat it. You're just supposed to look
23:33
Speaker 1: at it while you eat cheaper fruit. And then I
23:36
Speaker 1: guess you say to the host, oh, wow, you do
23:39
Speaker 1: have a pineapple dope, and they're like, they're like, what's
23:42
Speaker 1: it tastes like? And they're like, I don't know, I'm
23:44
Speaker 1: not going to eat it. This was eleven grand oh no,
23:47
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. Then you point out the gestation period,
23:50
Speaker 1: let's just call it. It's totally not the right science
23:52
Speaker 1: through at all, But for how long it takes for
23:54
Speaker 1: the thing to ripen? Right, So that gives you a
23:56
Speaker 1: pretty long window of displaying it. But at what point
23:59
Speaker 1: in that does it always look the same? Is it green?
24:02
Speaker 1: Does it go from like green to I mean, honestly,
24:05
Speaker 1: even a right pineapple is sort of green on the outside. Um,
24:09
Speaker 1: I wonder how long how long do you think you
24:11
Speaker 1: have with this prize possession? And if it's just getting
24:16
Speaker 1: there at the tail end or okay, this is about
24:18
Speaker 1: to go. I've gotten three months of display out of it,
24:22
Speaker 1: and now it's time to crack it open and take
24:24
Speaker 1: a bite. Well, nowadays, if you look at the modern
24:29
Speaker 1: pineapple expiration date, it's pretty crazy. A whole pineapple will
24:34
Speaker 1: last two to three days on the counter the day. Okay,
24:39
Speaker 1: But again I gotta pose this question, what does it
24:41
Speaker 1: look like when it's at the beginning of that six
24:43
Speaker 1: month ripening period that we're talking about. It has to
24:46
Speaker 1: look different, right, Yeah, yeah, it'll it'll look different like
24:50
Speaker 1: getting fruit. The appearance will change over time. Obviously, people
24:54
Speaker 1: were keeping these pineapples for much longer than two to
24:58
Speaker 1: three days because they two of three days is the
25:01
Speaker 1: window in which you can eat it and it will
25:03
Speaker 1: still taste fresh. But again they're not eating it, so
25:06
Speaker 1: they're they are riding this horse to the ground, by
25:10
Speaker 1: which I mean they're going to have that pineapple out
25:13
Speaker 1: there for as long as possible, even if it's rotting,
25:17
Speaker 1: because it's not as though someone is going to eat it.
25:22
Speaker 1: This craze, by the way, it took off in the
25:24
Speaker 1: American colonies as well. They were imported from the Caribbean
25:28
Speaker 1: islands and they were still really expensive because you would
25:31
Speaker 1: think maybe pineapples would be cheaper, right because the colonies
25:35
Speaker 1: are closer. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. The colonists would
25:40
Speaker 1: display pineapples as well, but when they're started going rotten,
25:44
Speaker 1: they would eat them. Right. See, there we go, we're
25:47
Speaker 1: speaking the same language. Um. But but even there's where
25:50
Speaker 1: like around eight k you know for one of these,
25:53
Speaker 1: it was very close to the prices in England. Yeah,
25:57
Speaker 1: which is nuts. And now we have to reveal just
26:01
Speaker 1: how crazy this got. Nol. What's up with the pineapple
26:05
Speaker 1: rental markets? Uh huh yeah, I mean, you know, how
26:10
Speaker 1: how much time do you want? Then? I know it's
26:13
Speaker 1: one of your big things. We talked about it a lot.
26:16
Speaker 1: I've got a beautiful, beautiful fruit. I will rent you
26:20
Speaker 1: for let's call it a hundred bucks a day. Alright,
26:24
Speaker 1: do I need insurance or well, you can protect your
26:28
Speaker 1: you know, you can get rental insurance for an extra
26:30
Speaker 1: ten okay, because I'm going on a date and I
26:33
Speaker 1: just really want to flex. Yeah, but don't drop it, ben,
26:36
Speaker 1: and definitely don't eat it. This is like a you know, look,
26:40
Speaker 1: but but don't eat situation. Got it? One ten doesn't
26:44
Speaker 1: seem that bad now? By again, by today's then you
26:47
Speaker 1: can buy your own pineapple. But you don't need me.
26:49
Speaker 1: I have an antiquated business I have actually I have
26:52
Speaker 1: been outpaced by history. Um. I really should have thought
26:58
Speaker 1: this business model through, but act then. It was a
27:00
Speaker 1: great business model because you know, it was like the
27:03
Speaker 1: Blockbuster video model, you know, where you could just uh,
27:06
Speaker 1: you know, get a bunch of pineapples and instead of
27:09
Speaker 1: selling them and having a one time payout, you keep
27:13
Speaker 1: cycling them through and renting them to people. Um. And
27:16
Speaker 1: it became a pretty lucrative trade, the pineapple rental market.
27:21
Speaker 1: There's so much status wrapped up in these um people
27:26
Speaker 1: wanted to get in on the party at the very least,
27:30
Speaker 1: they wanted to appear as if they were in on
27:32
Speaker 1: the party. Um, so they might just rent a pineapple
27:35
Speaker 1: for a night for a dinner soiree, you know, to
27:39
Speaker 1: use for that centerpiece on the table, and that you know,
27:42
Speaker 1: would be enough nominal, enough of a fee they could
27:45
Speaker 1: afford it. They could feel like they, you know, we're somehow,
27:49
Speaker 1: you know, keeping up with the Jones. It's the same
27:52
Speaker 1: as people that like buy luxury clothing items when they
27:56
Speaker 1: just really don't make enough money to do that to
27:59
Speaker 1: justify ending two hundred dollars on a on a Gucci
28:02
Speaker 1: shirt or whatever. That's probably low, but they feel so
28:06
Speaker 1: you know, pressured by society and by the people they
28:09
Speaker 1: follow on social media and all this stuff. Sorry, I'm
28:11
Speaker 1: soapboxing here a little bit that they'll like, you know,
28:14
Speaker 1: overspend and spend out of their means to get this stuff.
28:17
Speaker 1: Not saying people shouldn't have what they want and feel
28:19
Speaker 1: good about the clothing that they have and if that's
28:21
Speaker 1: what you're into the fashion and stuff, but I think
28:23
Speaker 1: a lot of it is pressure. And this is definitely
28:25
Speaker 1: what this is when you say pressure to keep up
28:28
Speaker 1: and and and to you know, fight that those feelings
28:31
Speaker 1: of jealousy. Yeah right, Like I was saying earlier, it's
28:34
Speaker 1: like an arms race to keep up with the Joneses.
28:37
Speaker 1: But to the point about designer fashion, this this led
28:41
Speaker 1: me down an interesting rabbit hole because I was wondering
28:45
Speaker 1: whether some unscrupulous merchant did the same thing that many
28:50
Speaker 1: merchants do in the modern day, which is to make knockoffs,
28:54
Speaker 1: was their counterfeit pineapple market. I to me, that's really
28:59
Speaker 1: interesting because has so many people who saw pineapples wouldn't
29:03
Speaker 1: have seen them in person. It would have heard about
29:05
Speaker 1: them and seen paintings, right or drawings. So I bet
29:09
Speaker 1: there was somebody selling fake pineapples the same way people sell,
29:13
Speaker 1: you know, knockoff supreme gear or something. But this also
29:18
Speaker 1: leads us to another funny thing. Well, the funny thing
29:21
Speaker 1: that turns pretty dark pretty quickly. This means that for
29:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people who could actually afford to buy pineapples,
29:29
Speaker 1: they were buying pineapples used because these things have been
29:33
Speaker 1: rented out for several days beforehand. Right, and now you
29:36
Speaker 1: get this used pineapple, who knows how many people have
29:40
Speaker 1: touched it? The maids would transport pineapples from dinner party
29:45
Speaker 1: to dinner party were also incredibly lucrative targets for thieves,
29:52
Speaker 1: so they had to be very, very careful. We know
29:55
Speaker 1: that pineapples became a source of crime in eighteen o seven.
30:02
Speaker 1: There are several cases for pineapple theft. One guy was
30:07
Speaker 1: sentenced to something called transportation, which is way less cool
30:11
Speaker 1: than it sounds. It was basically exiled to Australia for
30:15
Speaker 1: seven years for stealing seven pineapples. It's so funny, Ben,
30:19
Speaker 1: So I had to had to bring this up really quickly,
30:22
Speaker 1: the idea of, you know, comparing the luxury clothing situation
30:27
Speaker 1: to this pineapple situation. I don't know if you're a
30:30
Speaker 1: fan of the show Parks and Recreation, Ben, but a
30:33
Speaker 1: Z's and Sorry's character Tom Haverford UM is always pitching
30:37
Speaker 1: these like bad business ideas, and the one that he
30:40
Speaker 1: does that actually sort of takes off is a company
30:44
Speaker 1: called rent a Swag where you are able to rent
30:47
Speaker 1: luxury clothing, you know, for a period of time and
30:50
Speaker 1: then return it. Uh. And I was looking it up
30:52
Speaker 1: and I found an article that talked about these two
30:55
Speaker 1: um actual Silicon Valley startups. One's called Lottote and I
30:59
Speaker 1: believe they've advertised with us on different podcasts UM and
31:02
Speaker 1: another one called counter Squad or sorry couldtur Squad, and
31:06
Speaker 1: they essentially allow you to rotate outfits through each month
31:11
Speaker 1: and then send them back and then they build themselves
31:13
Speaker 1: into Netflix for clothes. So this is definitely a thing.
31:16
Speaker 1: And I like credit pineapples for this. It's funny because
31:20
Speaker 1: pineapples even entered language. They even became slang. If you
31:26
Speaker 1: wanted to describe something as top notch aces, the best
31:31
Speaker 1: of the best of creme de la creme, then in
31:34
Speaker 1: the seventeen seventies, you might say, a pineapple of the
31:38
Speaker 1: finest flavor. So let's go go back to buy fictional
31:43
Speaker 1: date and I would I would have this pineapple I've rented,
31:46
Speaker 1: and it's like, I wanted to show you this pineapple
31:49
Speaker 1: because you my dear pineapple of the finest flavor. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 1: and that wouldn't be weird back then. No, it wouldn't be.
31:56
Speaker 1: And I'm only guessing here, but I imagine as time
31:58
Speaker 1: went on, if that was can still be used to
32:00
Speaker 1: be like that Dame is a real pineapple? Exactly, yes, exactly. Um,
32:06
Speaker 1: there's a play in seventeen seventy five called The Rivals,
32:10
Speaker 1: where a character compliments someone by saying he is the
32:14
Speaker 1: very pineapple of politeness. And I think we bring it back.
32:19
Speaker 1: I'm with you, Ben, I'm with you. Uh, never mind,
32:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work on this woman. We'll sybe we can
32:24
Speaker 1: try some of these out at the end of the show.
32:26
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, so okay. So trade began to expand
32:31
Speaker 1: in Britain in the eighteenth century, and the pineapple as
32:37
Speaker 1: we know it already exists as both a super bespoke
32:41
Speaker 1: fruit that you dare not even eat it's so expensive.
32:44
Speaker 1: But the temptation and the nect of the pineapple. Um,
32:49
Speaker 1: but you you know, use it for decor rent it,
32:52
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, own it if you're super well off.
32:56
Speaker 1: And then that symbol, the iconography of the pineapple. It's
33:00
Speaker 1: such a distinct shape. You know, you can see it
33:04
Speaker 1: in silhouette like without even having any any detail. I
33:07
Speaker 1: And let's think about things like Hawaiian shirts bend or
33:11
Speaker 1: just things like tablecloths perhaps, or like dish towels. Right,
33:15
Speaker 1: that's a popular thing even today. And so when that
33:18
Speaker 1: trade started expanding in Britain, all these home good companies
33:22
Speaker 1: that were like you know, pumping out textiles and different things,
33:26
Speaker 1: you know, for the happy homemaker. They started using the
33:29
Speaker 1: pineapple as as as a print, you know, um for
33:33
Speaker 1: fabrics and things like that, or or various you know,
33:36
Speaker 1: carvings and emblems, etcetera. Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. You would
33:40
Speaker 1: see it on clocks. You would see it on paintings
33:44
Speaker 1: who would be walking into you know, the living room
33:47
Speaker 1: or the parlor and it would be pineapple themed outdoors.
33:51
Speaker 1: You would also see this on garden sculptures, on carriages,
33:56
Speaker 1: and this is like the Grand Manner houses or where
33:59
Speaker 1: you would see these pineapples carved in stone on these
34:03
Speaker 1: plinths just sitting out in the yard. Because the idea was,
34:08
Speaker 1: you know what, this fruit may not last forever, but
34:12
Speaker 1: if I can get a sculpture of it, everybody who
34:15
Speaker 1: walks into my house is gonna know that at one point,
34:18
Speaker 1: you guys, I had a pineapple. That's what this stone
34:22
Speaker 1: is about. Less d forget, I am aware of pineapples.
34:28
Speaker 1: I am a classy dude, and I'm sorry you buried
34:30
Speaker 1: the lead a little bit there. Plinth plinth, give it
34:34
Speaker 1: to me. A plinth is just you know how when
34:38
Speaker 1: you see a statue or like a bust or a sculpture,
34:43
Speaker 1: and it's it's resting on a column some sort. The plinth.
34:47
Speaker 1: Is that that really heavy base that you put the
34:51
Speaker 1: statue or or the valls on. Wow? All right, well
34:56
Speaker 1: I definitely learned a new word today, plinth. It doesn't
34:58
Speaker 1: really roll off the tongue. And then, like I said, things,
35:01
Speaker 1: you know, more fabric patterns, right, like napkins and wallpaper,
35:06
Speaker 1: even tablecloths. Great article in mental Flaws, the super Lux
35:11
Speaker 1: History of Pineapples. Um goes through a lot of this
35:14
Speaker 1: stuff beautifully as always. And of course you know paintings.
35:18
Speaker 1: That was a huge thing too. It was just really
35:20
Speaker 1: really popular image because of all this association with wealth
35:24
Speaker 1: and opulence and even I think that hospitality thing still
35:27
Speaker 1: is part of the conversation here. Um is part of
35:31
Speaker 1: the conversation here. But yeah, it had become this symbol
35:36
Speaker 1: of good taste. Okay. I think I think that's that's
35:39
Speaker 1: what it all boils down to at this point, Um,
35:42
Speaker 1: good taste and opulence and and absurd, you know, grotesque wealth.
35:47
Speaker 1: But I think the good taste part is the thing
35:50
Speaker 1: that's going to kind of carry it on. Right. Yeah,
35:52
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm laughing because I just keep imagining these
35:57
Speaker 1: various scenarios where really important people took the time out
36:01
Speaker 1: of their day to make sure that someone else knew
36:04
Speaker 1: they had a pineapple. It's kind of like it's like
36:07
Speaker 1: the president of a country stopping all official business to
36:14
Speaker 1: make an announcement that they have a PS five. But
36:17
Speaker 1: it's on an order of magnitude, you know, more expensive
36:20
Speaker 1: than that. So for a while, pineapples were an English industry.
36:27
Speaker 1: In Europe, however, technology would soon change the pineapples. Social
36:34
Speaker 1: status advancements in the early eighties began to make the
36:40
Speaker 1: pineapple less of a pain to grow and therefore more common. Essentially,
36:47
Speaker 1: Holland invented some new hothouse technology which allowed them to
36:51
Speaker 1: grow pineapples there. The steamship came into the game, which
36:56
Speaker 1: meant quicker journeys, the pineapples were less likely to rot.
37:01
Speaker 1: More people were making money in Victorian England, and it
37:05
Speaker 1: wasn't long before the upwardly mobile, you know, like the
37:10
Speaker 1: upper middle class could start having pineapples at dinner parties
37:16
Speaker 1: of their own, which scandalizes the Royals. Now the pineapples
37:19
Speaker 1: uncool if the if the cleabs can have it. They
37:22
Speaker 1: hated that. They hated that as well, we can't have
37:26
Speaker 1: nice things. It's true. Yeah, the pineapple boom, or at
37:30
Speaker 1: least know the pineapple bubble had burst, right because now
37:35
Speaker 1: everyone could afford a pineapple. Didn't have quite the same cachet,
37:39
Speaker 1: but now people could enjoy the pineapple. For why you
37:41
Speaker 1: should enjoy the pineapple, ben for why you enjoy the
37:44
Speaker 1: pineapple so well? To eat It's succulent, delicious flavor and
37:49
Speaker 1: um versatility in cooking and any other culinary pursuits. Due
37:54
Speaker 1: we would be so impressive if we traveled back to
37:58
Speaker 1: this period of time in Europe, I would just we
38:01
Speaker 1: just bring a lot of pineapples with us, right, and
38:04
Speaker 1: they would be like, well, clearly, clearly these people are
38:07
Speaker 1: emperors of some foreign land. Why else would they have
38:10
Speaker 1: this wheelbarrow of pineapples exactly tossing them off like fake
38:14
Speaker 1: joker money in Batman exactly love us. You could buy
38:19
Speaker 1: a house with a pineapple, I bet. Anyhow, Yeah, the
38:22
Speaker 1: the aristocracy hates it. The world is being upended in
38:27
Speaker 1: pineapples now are no longer cool, and we could get
38:30
Speaker 1: a slice for a penny on the street, literally like
38:33
Speaker 1: like it was like street food exactly exactly, and you
38:39
Speaker 1: could find it installs in most cities and towns across
38:43
Speaker 1: the country, and satirical cartoonists would start drawing pictures of
38:50
Speaker 1: working class people eating pineapples, and it was very much
38:54
Speaker 1: a visual metaphor for the problem of social progress. And
39:01
Speaker 1: then the invention of canning injured the mix, and now
39:06
Speaker 1: you could you could have pineapples preserve. So you start
39:11
Speaker 1: seeing these rings of pineapple that have been canned, and
39:14
Speaker 1: they're showing up in everything. People are adding pineapple to
39:17
Speaker 1: food at a crazy rate. They spend so much time
39:20
Speaker 1: figuring out that they could do this. You never asked
39:24
Speaker 1: if they should add pineapple to things like meatloaf. Yeah,
39:29
Speaker 1: there's a there's a rough era for that kind of
39:32
Speaker 1: I think it's called the seventies. Uh. The jello salads,
39:35
Speaker 1: the jello salad days and U not just the salad
39:39
Speaker 1: days are good. That's a good thing, right, you pine
39:41
Speaker 1: for the salad days you know of your youth, Right,
39:44
Speaker 1: the jello salad the jealous salad days not not so good.
39:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I love this, I really do.
39:53
Speaker 1: Especially just the idea of you know, the average you know,
39:58
Speaker 1: people being able to eat the pineapple and it pissing
40:02
Speaker 1: off the aristocracy. I'm always all about that in history,
40:06
Speaker 1: but today, I mean it's it's it's just as popular
40:08
Speaker 1: as ever. People love pineapple. It's great and smoothies. Like
40:12
Speaker 1: you said that, we gave a bunch of things on
40:13
Speaker 1: the top of show that we like. Pineapple, upside down
40:15
Speaker 1: cake great just as a snack. You know, in the
40:18
Speaker 1: fruit cup, you know of of our youth, which you
40:21
Speaker 1: can now pretty much get something very similar, hopefully with
40:25
Speaker 1: a little bit better distribution of cherries. For you, Ben,
40:29
Speaker 1: thanks to that you remembered, I'm touched. Have you Have
40:32
Speaker 1: you heard of a lot of fruit to the place
40:35
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta? Right? Yeah, Yeah, they're They're pretty awesome.
40:39
Speaker 1: That's where you can go and get I never thought
40:41
Speaker 1: that I would be the kind of person who, as
40:44
Speaker 1: an adult, would drive somewhere specifically to get a fruit cup.
40:49
Speaker 1: But they are nailing it. If you were ever in Atlanta,
40:52
Speaker 1: you get a chance go check out a lot of
40:54
Speaker 1: fruit to their their top notch. I'll tell you what
40:57
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by, Ben. I'm I almost guarantee that you've
41:00
Speaker 1: tried it. One of my favorite places in Atlanta is
41:03
Speaker 1: Plaza Fiesta. It's that's like really cool indoor Mexican mall
41:07
Speaker 1: with you know, all kinds of food stalls and you
41:10
Speaker 1: know taker he is, and amazing things that you can
41:13
Speaker 1: get good leather goods like boots, like outfitters, really really
41:16
Speaker 1: really fun. It feels like you stepped through a portal
41:18
Speaker 1: into another place entirely. It's it's it's a beautiful place.
41:22
Speaker 1: But they one of the most popular things they always
41:25
Speaker 1: see people they're um enjoying are these amazing fruit cups,
41:31
Speaker 1: usually with mango slices and often pineapple and a few
41:35
Speaker 1: other little things thrown in. But they have these like
41:38
Speaker 1: swizzle stick looking things that are covered in this like
41:41
Speaker 1: chili powder that's like spicy chili powder, and they're meant
41:44
Speaker 1: to be like a sweet, savory, almost salty cup situation.
41:48
Speaker 1: And I've always been a little freaked out to try.
41:50
Speaker 1: But the more I'm thinking, all, you know what, the
41:52
Speaker 1: only live once, and I'm getting older and my tastes
41:54
Speaker 1: are changing, I think I might be down for one
41:56
Speaker 1: of those. If you had one, then yeah, yeah, I'm
41:58
Speaker 1: a fan. I would try it out. I haven't had
42:01
Speaker 1: one of those years. I think you'll dig it. I'd
42:04
Speaker 1: be interested to hear what you think, what your take
42:06
Speaker 1: on it is. We also are interested to hear your
42:11
Speaker 1: experiences with pineapple in the modern day, because it's coming
42:15
Speaker 1: back as a symbol. We've seen, well, you know, people
42:19
Speaker 1: that would sometimes be called hipsters rocking pineapples as as
42:23
Speaker 1: a you know, as like a Hawaiian shirt or I
42:27
Speaker 1: work actually with a writer from Vanity Fair. I'm not
42:31
Speaker 1: gonna name names, but one of the first things I
42:33
Speaker 1: noticed about this guy, who's a brilliant writer, is he
42:35
Speaker 1: has a big pineapple tattoo on his forearm. Interesting, and
42:40
Speaker 1: it's really cool. He's way cooler than me. I should
42:43
Speaker 1: point that out, But now here we are. The pineapple
42:47
Speaker 1: became insanely popular. It had kind of a fall from grace,
42:54
Speaker 1: but it remains. It remains iconic in the modern day because,
42:59
Speaker 1: like Sentinel, it looks incredibly distinct and it also tastes
43:04
Speaker 1: incredibly good. Uh been quick hot take pineapples on pizza?
43:11
Speaker 1: You know what, I think people's pizzas should be their own.
43:14
Speaker 1: If you bought the pizza, put whatever you want on it,
43:17
Speaker 1: but you personally are you a pineapple on pizza? That
43:19
Speaker 1: says a lot about someone's personality, does it? Uh? I
43:23
Speaker 1: have that pineapple on pizza. I'm not opposed to it.
43:26
Speaker 1: I don't you know, Hawaiian pizza sometimes has too much
43:31
Speaker 1: pineapple and ham on it. I think you gotta you
43:33
Speaker 1: gotta have a soft touch. I like it occasionally, you know,
43:36
Speaker 1: for a treat. But yeah, please, Ben, I'm sorry I
43:39
Speaker 1: interrupted you for that hot take, which I think is
43:41
Speaker 1: very valuable, so I think it was worth it. But please,
43:44
Speaker 1: oh man, Yeah, it's a good question. I'm surprised we
43:46
Speaker 1: didn't get to it yet. We do have. This is
43:49
Speaker 1: the end of our two part episode of Pineapple, but
43:53
Speaker 1: almost like a superhero movie with a stinger a post
43:57
Speaker 1: credit scene. We do have a little bit of a
44:00
Speaker 1: tease for maybe an episode in the future. Yeah. The
44:04
Speaker 1: upper class when they realized that pineapples were, you know,
44:08
Speaker 1: no longer the hot produce, they had to find a
44:11
Speaker 1: new way to let everybody in society know that they
44:15
Speaker 1: were in fact better than them. And they didn't learn
44:19
Speaker 1: their lesson from the Pineapple tobaccle, where many people lost
44:23
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands and thousands dollars. Instead, they decided to
44:29
Speaker 1: look for another luxurious, difficult to grow food it's so ridiculous. No,
44:40
Speaker 1: what was it? Yeah, it was Celery Bob Bob, which
44:45
Speaker 1: just I mean, look, I I like Selary for like,
44:49
Speaker 1: you know, you know, it's the holy trinity of Cajun cooking.
44:51
Speaker 1: You know, celery, carrots, onion, was that the three? I know,
44:56
Speaker 1: that's that's what trinity is. But anyway, it's very, very
44:58
Speaker 1: great for making like a base the mayor off of
45:00
Speaker 1: like a lot of like cooking on its own, not
45:03
Speaker 1: a fan. You know, it's got the crunch. It's good
45:06
Speaker 1: if you're trying to avoid carbs. You can dip it
45:08
Speaker 1: and stuff. But it's also the kind of thing that
45:10
Speaker 1: you see haphazardly thrown into your like styrofoam box of
45:13
Speaker 1: to go chicken wings. So clearly that has gone quite
45:17
Speaker 1: a leap away from where these weird riches were hoping
45:21
Speaker 1: it would. But stay tuned for more on that. And
45:24
Speaker 1: I would love to hear about the history of selling.
45:26
Speaker 1: I do want to add really quickly, Hawaiian pizza was
45:28
Speaker 1: invented in Canada by the owner of a Greek restaurant.
45:33
Speaker 1: That's all we're gonna We're gonna leave it with that,
45:35
Speaker 1: And I alluded to the top episode one um, and
45:38
Speaker 1: we didn't really get into it. The pineapple is so
45:41
Speaker 1: sought actor that it actually created like a coup type situation.
45:45
Speaker 1: And that really is the story of pineapples being brought
45:49
Speaker 1: to the masses in the nineteen hundreds through the Dull
45:53
Speaker 1: Food Company originally called the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, and it said,
46:00
Speaker 1: actually they deposed the last sovereign ruler of Hawaii before
46:06
Speaker 1: you know, and the annexation of it. It's a whole
46:08
Speaker 1: thing I recommend. I think Ben would agree to listen
46:11
Speaker 1: to a special episode of Stuff They Don't Want You
46:14
Speaker 1: to Know, our other show with special guest hosts super
46:18
Speaker 1: producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson and and Danish Schwartz. Yeah.
46:25
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about that episode the entire time we
46:28
Speaker 1: were recording these. Uh. They did a wonderful job. It's
46:31
Speaker 1: a it's a deep dive into the events that led
46:35
Speaker 1: to Hawaii becoming a US state. Uh In the pineapple,
46:41
Speaker 1: like the banana in South America, had a role to
46:45
Speaker 1: play in in this story of imperialism. So please do
46:50
Speaker 1: check this out. Please also stay tuned as we as
46:55
Speaker 1: we learn more about Celery. That's so ridiculous and cellar
46:58
Speaker 1: like beef stew, and the whole trinity, which is, you know,
47:01
Speaker 1: like you said, onion, bell, pepper, and cellery. But pepper,
47:04
Speaker 1: that's the one. That's the one. Yeah. But we're gonna
47:07
Speaker 1: call it a day because I think this episode has
47:10
Speaker 1: made both of us hungry. We can talk about food forever.
47:14
Speaker 1: And it's crazy. You get a whole another episode from
47:16
Speaker 1: Alexis and Dana on just the one thing that we
47:19
Speaker 1: barely even scratched on. I can't believe how much pineapple
47:22
Speaker 1: content there is out there, Bennett, right right, We're still
47:26
Speaker 1: We're still flexing like the aristocrats of old. Also like
47:30
Speaker 1: to recommend an episode of our sister podcast, Saver with
47:36
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Bomb and Annie Reese. You may recognize from
47:40
Speaker 1: earlier episodes of Ridiculous History. They have an episode all
47:44
Speaker 1: about just renting pineapples. It's called May I Rent Your Pineapple?
47:49
Speaker 1: Do check it out and let us know what you think.
47:51
Speaker 1: Thanks to the whole crew. Uh no, this this is uh,
47:55
Speaker 1: this is a wild ride. This one was a lot
47:57
Speaker 1: of fun. What do you think, Oh dude, it's more
48:00
Speaker 1: fun than you could shake a pineapple app You could
48:03
Speaker 1: shake a pineapple at anything. It's not that hard, they're
48:05
Speaker 1: not that heavy. They're they're just you know, spiny. Be
48:07
Speaker 1: careful handling that pineapple. Yeah, do it by the base
48:11
Speaker 1: of the pineapple, because if you do it by the crowd,
48:13
Speaker 1: you're just gonna pull the crowd off. And then will
48:15
Speaker 1: it still be the king of fruits? That's a good question.
48:20
Speaker 1: It's a good question, Ben. And speaking of questions, we'd
48:23
Speaker 1: like to hear from you, why not swing on by
48:25
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians on Facebook? Tell us your weird stories about
48:30
Speaker 1: fruits of yesteryear, or you know what produce and spices
48:34
Speaker 1: that became incredibly expensive? Pineapples far from the only example
48:38
Speaker 1: I love to hear about that. You can also find
48:41
Speaker 1: my colleague Nolan I on social media, not as shows,
48:45
Speaker 1: but as people. Oh my gosh, we are in fact people.
48:48
Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram I am at how
48:50
Speaker 1: now Noel Brown posting, you know, just stuff from around
48:53
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah, a lot of like weird music videos
48:56
Speaker 1: and I just kind of film on my TV until
48:59
Speaker 1: you know, the algoray them makes me pull them down
49:01
Speaker 1: or pulls them now automatically. But you know, my kid
49:03
Speaker 1: doing cosplays and stuff like that. You know, come, come,
49:06
Speaker 1: join me on my life's journey via Instagram. How about you, Ben,
49:09
Speaker 1: You've got a couple of spots people can find you. Yeah,
49:11
Speaker 1: I want to say, Uh, Noel's meme game is strong.
49:14
Speaker 1: So do do you take a look at his stories?
49:16
Speaker 1: I always get to kick out of those. Yeah, you can.
49:19
Speaker 1: While you're on the internet. You can find me having
49:22
Speaker 1: a various misadventures on Instagram where I'm at Ben Boland
49:26
Speaker 1: b O W l I N. You can also find
49:28
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ben Bolan hs W. The old
49:32
Speaker 1: school folks know where that hs W comes from. Old
49:37
Speaker 1: school folks like like my pal Noel. Here are super
49:40
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram thanks to you, and of course thanks
49:43
Speaker 1: to our may Man guest producer Andrew Howard. You know
49:48
Speaker 1: what I think if we're going to use the name
49:50
Speaker 1: the Pineapple Kid, Andrew feels more like the Pineapple Kid
49:54
Speaker 1: to mean, do you think he'd like that name? We
49:56
Speaker 1: have to ask him. But he's pretty He's a pretty
49:58
Speaker 1: agreeable fellow. He's way more chill than we are. He's
50:01
Speaker 1: pretty chill. But yeah, I do like the Pineapple Kid.
50:04
Speaker 1: But I do feel like it that it should be
50:06
Speaker 1: reserved for some sort of hardened criminal or DJ. Yeah.
50:11
Speaker 1: I mean just it's like the inverse relationship between cute
50:15
Speaker 1: names and threats in prison. Like if if you see
50:20
Speaker 1: someone in prison and their name is like the death Dealer,
50:24
Speaker 1: then you know what you're getting. But if you see
50:26
Speaker 1: someone who's name like Spurfee or the Pineapple kid, run away, runaway, runaway,
50:33
Speaker 1: or punched them right in the face first thing, when
50:35
Speaker 1: you walk into the mess hall to exercise your dominance,
50:39
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's what they tell you. That's prison
50:41
Speaker 1: rules there, man, Ben, thank you of course. Uh. In
50:44
Speaker 1: addition to Jonathan Strickling, the quister who I'm I'm been missing,
50:48
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I have any bad things to
50:50
Speaker 1: say about him anymore. I just he doesn't come around
50:52
Speaker 1: the knock anymore. I kind of missed him. I think maybe,
50:54
Speaker 1: um my negative talk has kept him at bay. So
50:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to woo him back to us
51:01
Speaker 1: because I think we're ahead now. So I think I
51:02
Speaker 1: maybe only cranky when we're behind in the quiz game. Yeah, well, uh,
51:07
Speaker 1: I think we are one ahead because we had some
51:10
Speaker 1: help from our research associate, gave Louizier. Remember it's right,
51:16
Speaker 1: and we won, So come on, back at us, Come
51:19
Speaker 1: at us, Strickland. We were ready for you. Huge thanks
51:23
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. All the people,
51:26
Speaker 1: all of you lovely ridiculous historians, joined the Facebook group
51:30
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. You can talk to all your fellow history
51:32
Speaker 1: bouts out there on the internet. Quick idea, Well, let's
51:37
Speaker 1: let us know how you feel about this. Let's up
51:39
Speaker 1: the stakes for the quister segment and say that the
51:42
Speaker 1: winner gets a pineapple. Love it. Whether or not they
51:46
Speaker 1: want it, it's yours, Now do with it what you will.
51:50
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
52:03
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
52:06
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.