Frankie Harrington, age 14, of Lansing, Michigan, for his question:
Did the pineapple originate in Hawaii?
The pineapple originated in South America, where most of the world's edible vegetables got their start. It is possible that Columbus tasted the delectable fruit when he visited the I lest Indies. Later, pineapple plants were introduced into many lands. We are not sure who took the first ones to Hawaii, but several basic improvements had to be made before it grew there as a major crop.
Nowadays, fragrant pineapple plants thrive on 65,000 acres of various Hawaiian islands. They seem even more at home there than the sugar cane that occupies 240,000 acres. But a century ago, Hawaiian pineapples were few and far between and certainly nobody guessed that someday they would provide a quarter of the world supply. In fact, right up to 1914 more pineapples were grown in Florida than in Hawaii.
Tracing a popular plant back to its native land is never easy. This is because mankind is by nature a gourmet type world traveler. From the very beginning he was a born wanderer and from the very beginning he did his best to take home samples of the foreign foods he tasted. Our cavemen ancestors might have regarded the doggie bag among the greatest inventions of history.
Obviously a plant as tasty as the pineapple was destined for global travel. Experts suspect that it originated either in Brazil or Paraguay. But before its native home could be recorded, transplants were thriving in many parts of Central and South America, plus the West Indies. This was the pineapple story when the Spanish arrived in the late 1400s.
Later, when sailing ships made fairly regular voyages across the Pacific, some unknown person took pineapple plants to Hawaii. From an old diary, we know that they were growing there as long ago as 1813. But for the next 70 years or so, nobody thought they would amount to much. Then in 1835, two events occurred that changed the course of pineapple history in Hawaii.
A new sweet variety had been developed in Jamaica and 1,000 of these plants were sent to the islands. Possibly they would have perished but Captain John Kidwell also arrived. He was a talented horticulturist from England who knew that the island soil needed boosting and ,just how to do this. Kidwell's expert know¬how plus a lot of tender loving agricultural care brought success.
The pineapple plant is a slow grower and the first harvest is not ready for 20 months. In 1900, the Hawaiian fields showed great promise. But they did not out produce Brazil, their original home, until after World War I.
In the early 1800s, pineapples were introduced into the Azores, South Africa and Australia. In 1860, they were thriving in Florida. This was long before they became a major crop in Hawaii. Other pineapple growing countries include Mexico, Taiwan and Puerto Rico. The original homelands, Brazil and Paraguay, still produce their share.