The lengths wealthy people go to outdo one another are just absurd. I heard a segment on the radio about the Atlantic salmon fly-tying community, who tie based on historic patterns that used ever rarer bird feathers.<p>Modern tiers are faced with a choice now that the birds that were rare then have become even rarer (or extinct): Tie with something else, or find a source of authentic feathers.<p>The segment was an interview with the author of The Feather Thief[0], who investigated the lengths one "enterprising" tier went to to acquire authentic feathers, destroying the historical scientific record for whole species in the process.<p>It seems insane that a fad of rich men from a long time ago becomes the obsession of a subculture of the larger fly tying community and that the result of that is a hole in the scientific record. It's enough to make you wish that folks would get obsessed with growing rare pineapples instead.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44153387-the-feather-thief" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44153387-the-feather-thi...</a>
In South Africa right now alcohol sales have been banned as part of the regulations to deal with covid-19 pandemic. This has led to the rise in popularity of the pineapple as it is used to make home made booze.[0]<p>[0]<a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/07/18/south-africa-bans-alcohol-sales" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/07/18/...</a>
It helps that pineapples are really delicious. Also, eating them is sort of a family project. Everyone observes the thing sitting on the kitchen counter like a little potentate, waiting for it to ripen. Then it must be sliced up in the best way to remove the horrible armor while saving every bit of the delicious flesh. All that work is worth it, though: unlike other labor-intensive fruit e.g. pomegranates they're big enough to flavor multiple meals. Pineapples seem particularly well-designed to demand the spotlight.
I grew up in a city with a lot of Colonial buildings, and you'll often notice pineapples carved into them (above the front door, for example). My grandmother told me they symbolize hospitality, which Wikipedia confirms:<p><pre><code> In architecture, pineapple figures became decorative elements symbolizing hospitality.
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So I guess the story doesn't really end where the article does! I wonder how much revisionism is involved there: at the time they were actually carved into the architecture, were they <i>intended</i> to symbolize wealth? Or hospitality?
I've long wanted to stay in this fabulous Pineapple folly in Scotland operated by the Landmark Trust <a href="https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/pineapple-10726/" rel="nofollow">https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/...</a>
Slightly surprised not to see a reference to the Dunmore Pineapple:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunmore_Pineapple" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunmore_Pineapple</a><p><i>"the most bizarre building in Scotland"</i>
One, there is a variety of pineapple (white pineapple) you can only get in Hawaii because it is too delicate to ship that really is tastier than what you find in U.S. supermarkets.<p>Two, this article doesn’t address the crazy urban rumor I heard years ago that people who place pineapple flags outside their homes, at least in the suburbs, are signaling that they are swingers.
There's something so innocently charming about this whole story, the idea of an aristocrat taking his pineapple down the street to impress his peers is ridiculously funny.
I can't help but see a slight resemblance to the induced scarcity of certain Instagram famous houseplants such as a monstera albo variegata, for which buyers will regularly spend several hundred dollars for a tiny cutting in hopes of propagating one for themselves.
Sir Christopher Wren placed two golden pineapples atop St. Paul's Cathedral in London.<p><a href="https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/st-pauls-gold-pineapples-18354270" rel="nofollow">https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/st-pauls-gold-pin...</a>
I always wondered why the logo for these very fancy British hotels was a Pineapple!<p><a href="https://www.historichousehotels.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.historichousehotels.com</a>
The last sentence in the article mentions celery as a luxury good:<p>"No, they didn't. Dr O'Hagan says the truly wealthy then set their caps at another luxury and difficult-to-grow food. Celery."<p>Does anyone have a good link to the story about how celery became a luxury item? The obsession with pineapple as an exotic luxury makes at least some sense to me. But...celery??