[Sca-cooks] pineapples

[Terry Decker]

>From at least the 14th Century, pineapple referred to pine cones.  Most of 
the pineapples which appear in various decorative forms are actually pine 
cones rather than stylistic versions of Ananas comosus.  In the mid-17th 
Century, usage transferred from pine cones to the fruit of A. comosus 
because of the visual simularities.  G. Havers translation of the The 
Travels of Pietro della Valle in the East Indies (1664) makes reference to 
the simularities and places the pineapple in India between 1623 and 1626.

Bear


> The English were crazy about pineapples, if their adoption into heraldry 
> is any indication. When i lived in southern Maryland, it seems the 
> pineapples were everywhere, used as decoration by the decendants of the 
> first English inhabitants who came over in 1634 (Is that right Kiri? It's 
> been a few years...). It always bemused me that the pineapple was so 
> popular, being a New World fruit and all. It may have been adopted after 
> they came to America, but that doesn't make sense to me since pineapples 
> aren't indigenous to North America! Pineapples aren't in the PicDic, and 
> are only minimally mentioned in Fox-Davies, without dates of course.
>
> ~Aislinn~