PVC

There is a fruit which was once so revered that if you had one then you were almost a king! Now of course this very fruit might get you arrested in Italy apparently if you try to put pieces of it on your Pizza!

Yes it is Pineapple!

What do you get when you remove B from Bananas!? Well, Pineapple!

Think a little about that joke! Do not pretend that you understood it!

Now apparently symbols have always been used to signal one’s status. But for about 250 years, many signposts of wealth and good breeding were ably fulfilled by the pineapple!

The country’s must-have accessory graced the table at the very richest aristocrats’ social gatherings!

But apparently the scaly sweet was too valuable to eat – a single fruit was worth thousands of pounds and often the same pineapple would be paraded from event to event until it eventually went rotten!

Later, a roaring trade in pineapple rental developed, where ambitious but less well-off folk might hire one for a special event, dinner party or even just to jauntily tuck under an arm on a show-off stroll.

King Charles (do not ask me which one! As far as I am concerned all of them are the same ‘skirt’ wearing Bumpkins!)  was so taken with pineapples that he commissioned a portrait of himself being presented with one!

In the American colonies in the 1700s, pineapples were no less revered. Imported from the Caribbean islands, pineapples that arrived in America were very expensive—one pineapple could cost as much as $8000 (That can get you a car today!).

This high cost was due to the perishability, novelty, exoticism, and scarcity of the fruit. Again as above affluent colonists would throw dinner parties and display a pineapple as the centerpiece, a symbol of their wealth, hospitality, and status, instantly recognizable by a party’s guests. Pineapples, however, were mainly used for decoration at this time; they were only eaten once they started going rotten!

The fruit evoked such jealousy among the poor, pineapple-less plebs that people could, if they wished, pay to rent a pineapple for the night. Before selling them for consumption, pineapple merchants rented pineapples to people who couldn’t afford to purchase them. Those who rented would take the pineapple to parties, not to give as a gift to the host, but to carry around and show off their apparent ability to afford such an expensive fruit!

Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, artists depicted pineapples to symbolize hospitality and generosity. Napkins, tablecloths, wallpaper, and even bedposts were decorated with drawings and carvings of pineapples to make guests feel welcome. If people couldn’t afford to buy or rent the real fruit, they bought porcelain dishes and teapots in the shape of a pineapple, which became hugely popular starting in the 1760s!

Now of course that is not the case! You can have Pineapple just like that! Then someone used the freely available Pineapple pieces and put them on the sacred Italian Pizza! Which lead to the social media story of Pineapple pizza Prohibition!

The Prohibition of Pineapple on Pizza (PPoP) is an international legal norm from which no derogation is allowed. It is considered a barbaric practice that violates the very essence of morality, humanity, culinary dignity of all Peoples and good taste!

So next time you want to feel like an aristocrat or a king, just hold a pineapple! But the next time you are in Italy, do not try to ask for Pineapple as a topping!

All that is joke but this is serious…

For reasons known to everyone, my own personal ode to our army. This is Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria! One of the only 21 people to have awarded the Param Veer Chakra! Proud and hopeful of our great country!

Jai hind!