99 Fun Facts About Pineapple

On which continent is the pineapple plant native?

South America: wild pineapples come from the Paraná–Paraguay basin, and Indigenous peoples carried the crop north to Mexico and the Caribbean before Europeans arrived.

What is the pineapple's scientific name?

Ananas comosus: wild pineapples once named as a separate species, Ananas bracteatus, are now counted as a variety of it.

Which plant belongs to the same botanical family as the pineapple?

Spanish moss: it is no true moss but a flowering plant in the pineapple's family, hanging from trees across the American South.

Which explorer was the first European to encounter a pineapple, on Guadeloupe?

Christopher Columbus: he is said to have carried a pineapple back to Spain, though the fruit tended to rot on the long Atlantic crossing.

Why did 17th-century English speakers give the pineapple its name?

The fruit resembled a pine cone, and 'pine apple' had already meant a pine cone since the 1300s, so the old name moved to the new fruit.

Botanically, what is a pineapple?

A multiple fruit of fused flowers: each 'eye' on the skin was a separate flower whose berry merged with its neighbours around the central stalk.

What is the 'Pineapple Express' that drenches the US West Coast?

An atmospheric river: it carries tropical moisture from near Hawaii to the coast, and its heaviest storms can bring floods and mudslides.

In the wild, pineapples are mainly pollinated by what?

Hummingbirds: Hawaii barred importing them, since pollinated fruit sets hard seeds that growers don't want.

A pineapple's spiral 'eyes' run in helices of 8 and 13, numbers from which famous series?

Sunflower seeds and pine cones show the same pattern.

Which unusual type of photosynthesis lets pineapples take in carbon dioxide at night?

CAM, crassulacean acid metabolism, lets pineapples open their stomata at night, storing carbon dioxide as malic acid and releasing it by day, a water-saving trick shared with cacti.

Which country's growers were the first in Europe to grow pineapple fruit?

Holland: Dutch growers were fruiting pineapples by the 1680s, and plants from Dutch gardens went on to stock English and French gardens.

Which French king was presented with a pineapple grown at Versailles in 1733?

Louis XV, who reigned from 1715 to 1774, was presented with a pineapple grown in the Versailles hothouses in 1733, three years after Dutch plants reached French gardeners.

Why were pineapples an 18th-century wealth symbol?

They cost a fortune to import or raise in heated pineries, so a single fruit went on show at dinner after dinner, and some were rented for an evening.

In architecture, a carved pineapple traditionally symbolises what?

Hospitality: probably through its association with the nobility, the fruit became a favourite 18th-century motif on gateposts, doorways and finials.

The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly topped by a giant stone pineapple, stands in which country?

Scotland: restored with the Landmark Trust, the folly can now be rented as a holiday home.

Which cultivar, brought to France in 1820, dominated 20th-century world pineapple production?

Smooth Cayenne: from France it went on to Britain and was spread around the world, as far as Australia.

Which 'Pineapple King' arrived in Honolulu in 1899 and founded his namesake pineapple company?

James Dole: in 1927 he offered $25,000 for the first flight from Oakland to Honolulu, a contest that cost ten lives.

Which Hawaiian island did the Hawaiian Pineapple Company buy in 1922 to turn into a plantation?

Lanai: pineapple farming there wound down in the early 1990s, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison bought almost all of the island in 2012.

What did engineer Henry Ginaca invent that transformed Hawaii's pineapple canning industry?

An automatic peeling and coring machine: it more than doubled how many pineapples could be processed a minute, from about 15.

What is the rosette of stiff leaves on top of a pineapple called?

The crown: the plant's stem keeps growing up through the fruit, forming its core, and ends in this tuft of stiff leaves.

Which Caribbean nation's coat of arms shows five golden pineapples on a red cross?

Jamaica: at independence in 1962, the arms' Latin motto gave way to 'Out of Many, One People'.

What is the name of the pineapple enzyme that tenderises meat and stops gelatin from setting?

Bromelain: heat breaks it down, which is why cooked or canned pineapple won't tenderise meat.

Raw pineapple is a rich source of vitamin C and which mineral?

Manganese: its black ore was long used by glassmakers to take the green tint out of glass.

Which Mexican taco filling is pork marinated with chillies and pineapple?

Al pastor: Lebanese immigrants brought spit-roasted shawarma to Mexico, and local cooks swapped the lamb for pork.

Pineapples stop ripening once picked, but which fruit keeps ripening off the plant?

Banana: like other climacteric fruits, it keeps producing ethylene, the gas that drives ripening, after it is picked.

How can you grow a new pineapple at home from a shop-bought fruit?

Plant the leafy top: set in soil it roots into a new plant, while commercial growers plant side shoots called slips and suckers.

About how long does a pineapple plant take from planting to its first fruit?

About 18 months: farms grow new plants from shoots rather than seeds, and commercial fruit is normally seedless.

Despite its name, Hawaiian pizza was invented in which country?

Canada: Greek-born Sam Panopoulos first served it in Chatham, Ontario, in 1962, and pizza purists have argued about it ever since.

Which country's president joked in 2017 that he would ban pineapple on pizza if he could?

Iceland: Guðni Th. Jóhannesson said it while taking questions from high-school pupils in Akureyri, and the joke set off a worldwide media storm.

Pineapple juice, coconut cream and rum make which cocktail?

Piña colada: Rupert Holmes wrote it into his 1979 hit 'Escape' at the last minute, replacing a line about Humphrey Bogart.

Where was the coconut-and-pineapple cocktail declared the official drink?

Puerto Rico: San Juan's Caribe Hilton says its bartender Ramón 'Monchito' Marrero created the drink there in 1954, though rival bartenders made claims too.

What is tepache, a traditional Mexican drink?

A fermented pineapple beverage: its name probably comes from Nahuatl tepiātl, a word for a raw-maize drink given to people who fainted.

What is the name of SpongeBob's pet snail, who shares his pineapple house under the sea?

Gary: he meows like a cat, and in the episode 'Have You Seen This Snail?' he runs away after SpongeBob forgets to feed him.

Who stars alongside James Franco in the 2008 stoner comedy Pineapple Express?

Seth Rogen: his character witnesses a murder and goes on the run with Franco's dealer.

Which country's traditional piña fabric is woven from pineapple-leaf fibres?

The Philippines: each piña strand is scraped from the leaf by hand and knotted one by one, and Aklan's handloom weaving is on UNESCO's heritage list.

Which TV detective comedy slipped a pineapple into every episode as a running gag?

Psych: some were tucked so far into the background that spotting them became a game for fans.

Clemens Wilmenrod popularised Toast Hawaii as the first TV chef of which country?

Germany: Wilmenrod presented the ham-and-pineapple toast in 1955, though nobody is sure the recipe was really his.

Early European pineapple growers plunged their pots into rotting bark supplied by which trade?

Leather tanning: the tanneries' spent oak bark gave off heat as it rotted, warming the pots from below.

Which weapon earned the nickname 'pineapple'?

A grenade: the grooves across its iron casing were also meant to give soldiers a firmer grip.

Which region supplied fresh pineapples to European markets in the late 19th century?

The Azores, where growers on São Miguel raised pineapples in glasshouses, supplied European markets in the late 19th century, while Florida and the Caribbean served North America.

The Big Pineapple, a 16-metre roadside landmark, stands in which Australian state?

Queensland: Prince Charles and Princess Diana rode its plantation train when they visited Australia in 1983.

What is nata de piña, a traditional dessert?

A jelly fermented with bacteria: its coconut-water cousin, nata de coco, spread further because coconuts, unlike pineapples, are available all year.

Growers fight pineapple wilt by controlling which insects?

Ants: they tend the mealybugs that spread the disease, carrying them from plant to plant and feeding on their honeydew.

Which gin-based cocktail's classic recipe includes pineapple juice and cherry brandy?

Singapore Sling: yet the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book printed it with no pineapple juice at all.

Rather than on a tree, how does a pineapple grow?

Atop a low, spiky plant: each plant sends up one main fruit, and its side shoots can go on to bear more.

Which seafaring nation had introduced the pineapple to India by about 1550?

The Portuguese: they are also credited with carrying the fruit to Africa.

Costa Rican pineapple shipments to Europe have often served as cover for what?

Drug trafficking: in one 2018 case, Spanish police found cocaine packed inside hollowed-out Costa Rican pineapples at a Madrid market.

In Hokkien, the pineapple's name sounds like a phrase meaning what?

In Hokkien the pineapple is 'ong lai', a homophone for 'prosperity arrives', which is why pineapples feature in Lunar New Year decorations in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

Which Cornish estate restored a Victorian pineapple pit warmed by rotting horse manure?

Heligan: its gardens lay lost and overgrown from the First World War until they were restored in the 1990s.

Fry cook SpongeBob SquarePants keeps his pineapple house in which fictional underwater city?

Bikini Bottom is also home to the Krusty Krab, the fast food restaurant where the cheerful sea sponge is obsessively attached to his job.

Which city's 'pineapple bun' contains no pineapple and is named only for its golden, checkered crust?

Hong Kong listed the bun as part of its intangible cultural heritage in 2014. Cafés there often serve it with a thick slice of butter stuffed inside.

In which sitcom does Ted Mosby wake to find a mystery pineapple on his nightstand?

How I Met Your Mother never explained the fruit on air. A deleted scene from the final season revealed that Ted had stolen it from the Captain's porch.

After Beijing banned imports of its fruit in 2021, which island marketed 'freedom pineapples' to the world?

Taiwan had been sending over 90% of its pineapple exports to the mainland, so its foreign minister launched the campaign, named in a nod to 'freedom fries'.

Task Force Pineapple, a volunteer network of US veterans, helped evacuate allies from which country in 2021?

Afghanistan had just fallen to the Taliban. Evacuees proved who they were by showing the volunteers a picture of yellow pineapples on a pink background.

Which tennis tournament's men's singles trophy, awarded since 1887, is decorated with a miniature gold pineapple?

Wimbledon keeps the original silver-gilt cup in its museum, so each champion goes home with a three-quarter-size replica bearing the names of every past winner.

A 1920s recipe contest run by a canned pineapple company drew over 2,500 entries for which dessert?

Upside-down cake is baked with fruit, butter and sugar lining the base of the pan, then inverted so that they become the topping.

Which Spanish king was said to prefer the pineapple to all other fruits after tasting one of the first in Europe?

Ferdinand II tasted the only fruit to survive an Atlantic crossing in 1496, and a court historian's note of his verdict helped launch Europe's long obsession with it.

Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen, a 45-second viral hit of 2016, was performed by a comedian from which country?

Japan's Daimaou Kosaka performed it as the character Pikotaro, and at the time it was the shortest song ever to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which future US president wrote in a 1751 Barbados diary that no fruit pleased him like the pineapple?

George Washington was a young man on the only trip abroad he ever made. At Mount Vernon he later asked ship captains to bring back pineapples two or three dozen at a time.

Tequila makers harvest the swollen heart of which plant, a core they call the 'pineapple' in Spanish?

Blue agave hearts are cut free of every leaf by a harvester called a jimador, then slowly baked and crushed to release their sugars.

How did many 18th-century English hosts get a pineapple to display at one important dinner party?

They rented one, so the same pineapple could grace several tables in the course of its life before anybody finally ate it.

Botanists class each individual 'eye' on a pineapple's skin as which type of small fruit?

A berry develops from each ovary on the stalk, and one pineapple is usually built from up to 200 of them packed around the core.

Sam Panopoulos, credited with inventing Hawaiian pizza in 1962, was born in which country?

Greece was his home until he emigrated at 20. The sweet-and-savoury dishes on his restaurant's menu later nudged him to try canned fruit on a pizza.

Which Panamanian strongman, ousted by a 1989 US invasion, was mockingly nicknamed 'Pineapple Face'?

Manuel Noriega owed the insult to pockmarks left by acne in his youth. He preferred to call himself 'El Man'.

Australians nickname which of their banknotes a 'pineapple' because of its bright yellow colour?

$50 notes also carry portraits of the writer and inventor David Unaipon and of Edith Cowan, the first woman to sit in an Australian parliament.

Which English king receives a pineapple from his gardener John Rose in a famous 1670s painting?

Charles II stands in everyday dress rather than armour, a rarity among his portraits. The earliest version was probably painted in 1677, the year the gardener died.

Pineapple Lumps, chewy chocolate-coated sweets first made in Oamaru in 1952, are an icon of which country?

New Zealand got them, in the usual telling, when a confectioner needed to use up pineapple marshmallow left over from making chocolate fish.

Which Southern US salad of pineapple, orange, coconut and marshmallows is named after the food of the gods?

Ambrosia first appeared in print in the 1867 cookbook Dixie Cookery. Many versions also fold in whipped cream, sour cream or even mayonnaise.

The violent 'Pineapple Primary' of 1928, marked by dozens of bombings, was fought mostly in which American city?

Chicago saw 62 bombings in the six months before the vote and at least two politicians killed, all under its notoriously corrupt mayor 'Big Bill' Thompson.

The Pineapple Fund, an anonymous donor's project that gave millions to 60 charities, paid out in which currency?

Bitcoin worth about $55 million reached the charities within five months. The donor, known only as 'Pine', announced the giveaway on Reddit in December 2017.

Many European languages took their word for the pineapple from 'nanas', a term in which indigenous language?

Tupi peoples ate the fruit as a staple food. The French writer André Thevet recorded their word for it, and many European languages adopted it rather than anything like the English name.

Which fruit company launched the MD-2 pineapple in 1996 under the name 'Gold Extra Sweet'?

Del Monte inherited the variety when a pineapple research institute was dissolved in 1986, and by the 2000s it had replaced the older canning type in US grocery stores.

A pink-fleshed pineapple approved for US sale in 2016 was engineered to make more of which tomato pigment?

Lycopene builds up because the fruit overexpresses a gene taken from tangerines. It finally reached shops in 2020 under the name Pinkglow.

Which silent-film star gives her name to a Prohibition-era cocktail of white rum, pineapple juice and grenadine?

Mary Pickford was the Toronto-born star billed as America's Sweetheart. The cocktail named for her also takes a dash of maraschino liqueur.

Which bitter Italian aperitif joins dark rum and pineapple juice in the tiki cocktail called the Jungle Bird?

Campari set the drink apart when Jeffrey Ong created it in 1973 as the welcome drink at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, where it first came in a bird-shaped ceramic vessel.

Pineapple is a variant of which poker game, dealt with three hole cards instead of the usual two?

Texas hold 'em rules take over once every player has thrown away one card before the flop. In the 'Crazy' version, the discard waits until after it.

Which green fruit of the myrtle family, about the size of a hen's egg, is also sold as the pineapple guava?

Feijoa is not a true guava at all. The ripe fruit drops from the tree by itself, and most people simply halve it and scoop out the pulp with a spoon.

The pineapplefish, named for its yellow scales edged in black, uses organs on its lower jaw to do what?

Produce light is their job: two pits near the corners of the mouth house glowing microbes, which the fish shines on small shrimp when it feeds at night.

Which Caribbean nation, famed for its sweet 'black' pineapple, shows the fruit at the top of its coat of arms?

Antigua and Barbuda prizes its black pineapple for juicy flesh that is said to be the sweetest of any variety, and it turns up in many local desserts.

The Pineapple Fountain is a landmark of Waterfront Park, beside the Cooper River in which South Carolina city?

Charleston opened the park in May 1990, only a week later than planned even though Hurricane Hugo had battered the site the previous September.

Which London cathedral has a gilded pineapple topping each of the twin towers on its west front?

St Paul's owes them to its architect, Wren, whose towers rise in stacked drums to a small ogee dome finished with the gilded fruit.

A 17-metre pineapple-shaped building, billed as the world's largest pineapple, stands at Bathurst in which country?

South Africa's giant copies an Australian original but stands just over two feet taller, and it houses a museum, a gift shop and an observation deck.

Reading and Leeds festivals banned pineapples in 2017 because fans of which British band kept bringing them to gigs?

Glass Animals mention the fruit in their song Pork Soda. A festival spokesman admitted the ban was partly tongue in cheek, and the band's drummer called it 'fruitist'.

Which English philosopher argued that nobody can know the taste of a pineapple without actually eating one?

John Locke used the then-exotic fruit in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding to argue that simple ideas reach the mind only through experience.

Pineappleweed, a roadside plant that smells of pineapple when crushed, is also known as which 'wild' herb?

Chamomile's wild namesake can be steeped into a tea that one field guide calls excellent, and it became one of Britain's fastest-spreading plants of the 20th century.

Which pineapple and grapefruit soft drink, sold in Britain from 1975, was folded into the Fanta brand in 2023?

Lilt was sold only in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Gibraltar, and its 1990s adverts made stars of two women the press nicknamed the 'Lilt Ladies'.

Pineapple Dance Studios, opened in 1979 in a former pineapple warehouse, is based in which London district?

Covent Garden had just lost the studio where former model Debbie Moore took her classes, so she opened her own there rather than move elsewhere.

Which producer of Knocked Up and Superbad co-wrote the story for the 2008 comedy Pineapple Express?

Judd Apatow traced the idea to Brad Pitt's stoner in True Romance: he wanted to follow that character out of his apartment and watch bad guys chase him.

The Painkiller, a rum cocktail heavy on pineapple juice, was created at the Soggy Dollar Bar in which island group?

British Virgin Islands bartenders on Jost Van Dyke first mixed it in the 1970s, and it is still served on the rocks under a generous grating of fresh nutmeg.

Which Russian ruler imported a hothouse method for growing pineapples into Russia in the 1720s?

Peter the Great borrowed the method from a pioneering foreign grower, and by 1730 twenty saplings had travelled on to Empress Anna's new palace in Moscow.

In Malaysia, bite-sized pineapple tarts are a 'festive cookie' baked above all for which celebration?

Chinese New Year tables are piled with the buttery tarts, which may go back to 16th-century Peranakan bakers in Malacca. Indonesians know the same treat as nastar.

Which island, later a place of exile for Napoleon, was planted with pineapples soon after its discovery in 1502?

Saint Helena was an early stop on the fruit's travels. Before the 1500s were out, pineapples were growing across most of the tropics, even on islands of the South Pacific.

Which princess rode the plantation train at Australia's Big Pineapple with her husband during a 1983 royal tour?

Diana and the then Prince of Wales took the ride on their official visit to the country, twelve years after the heritage-listed attraction opened in 1971.

The earl who built the Dunmore Pineapple folly later served as the last colonial governor of which US state?

Virginia called him away once the lower building was finished. The pineapple-shaped cupola on top was added only after he came back.

Gregory Town on the island of Eleuthera, host of an annual Pineapple Festival, lies in which country?

The Bahamas saw Eleuthera prosper on farming between 1950 and 1980, when the island was shipping large crops of pineapples abroad.

Which English explorer and Jamestown leader used the words 'pine apple' for the tropical fruit in 1624?

John Smith was writing when 'apple' served as a catch-all name for any unfamiliar tree fruit with a firm, round shape.

Pineapple Poll, a 1951 comic ballet first staged at Sadler's Wells, draws its music and plot from which duo's work?

Gilbert and Sullivan devotee Mackerras, a conductor, arranged the score, and the plot grew from the same comic ballad that fed into H.M.S. Pinafore.

Which singer reached number eleven on the Hot 100 in 1960 with the Sherman Brothers song Pineapple Princess?

Annette Funicello's single was later covered by the novelty band Barnes & Barnes and remixed for a Walt Disney Records album in 2014.

Pine Apple Rag, heard on the soundtrack of the 1973 film The Sting, was written by which ragtime composer?

Scott Joplin died in 1917, but the film's use of his rags, The Entertainer among them, helped to revive the popularity of his music decades later.