In 18th-century England, if you wanted to flex your wealth, you didn’t buy a sports car—you bought a pineapple. This spiky tropical fruit was so ludicrously rare and expensive that owning one (or even renting one for an evening) became the ultimate flex for aristocrats. Forget gold chandeliers or diamond-studded snuffboxes; a pineapple on your dining table screamed, “I’m rich enough to defy nature itself.”
Why the hype? Pineapples couldn’t be grown in England’s chilly climate, and importing them from the Caribbean was a perilous, months-long voyage. By the time they arrived, most were rotten or fermented. The few intact specimens became edible trophies, costing up to £8,000 in today’s money—equivalent to buying a small house. King Charles II even posed for a portrait receiving a pineapple as if it were a crown jewel. Meanwhile, the average Brit subsisted on turnips and bread, blissfully unaware that their wealthy peers were obsessing over a fruit they’d never taste.
But the pineapple craze didn’t stop at consumption. Wealthy Brits threw “pineapple parties” where the fruit was the literal centerpiece—displayed, not eaten. Guests would gawk at it, write poems about it, and then leave it to rot, because actually slicing it open was considered gauche. Some even rented pineapples by the hour to impress dinner guests, carrying them around like designer handbags. If your pineapple started to decay? No problem. Just dip it in wax and pass it off as a decorative heirloom.
The obsession went beyond parties. Pineapple-shaped architecture popped up across the country, with stone pineapples crowning gates, gardens, and even rooftops. The fruit became a symbol of hospitality, which explains why you’ll still find pineapple motifs in historic British inns. Meanwhile, gardeners tried (and mostly failed) to grow pineapples in specially designed “pineries”—greenhouses heated by decomposing manure. These experiments often produced shriveled, sour fruits, but that didn’t stop owners from bragging about their “exotic” harvests.
By the 19th century, steamships and canning technology made pineapples accessible to the masses, and the fruit’s elite status fizzled out. But its legacy lives on. Next time you see a pineapple on a pizza, remember: 300 years ago, that topping would’ve been the edible equivalent of a private jet. As for the 18th-century aristocrats? They’d probably faint at the sight of a $2 pineapple ring in a grocery aisle—though not before trying to rent it for a selfie.
