Pineapples Used to Be Luxury Rentals

For about 150 years, starting in the early 1700s, Europe absolutely lost its mind over a piece of fruit: Pineapple Mania!

The pineapple arrived from the New World and struck Europeans as strange and wonderful. It earned the nickname “King Pine,” and quickly became a status symbol because it was so rare and interesting.

Why One Fruit Cost a Fortune

The craze took off once European gardeners worked out how to grow pineapples locally using hothouses. Coaxing a tropical plant to fruit in the cold European climate took land, patience, and a lot of cash.

In England, growing a single healthy pineapple could cost the modern equivalent of thousands of pounds – a sum only the wealthiest households could justify. The pineapple turned into a status symbol showcasing how much money and free time you had.

If you managed to grow one, you didn’t eat it right away – you displayed it.

The Pineapple Rental Business

If you couldn’t grow your own pineapple but still wanted to impress guests at a dinner party, you could rent one!

And plenty of people got in on it – they paid a steep fee to borrow a pineapple for a single evening, prop it up as a centerpiece on their dinner table, and then return it untouched the next day. The same fruit might make the rounds through several dinners.

Because of the pineapple’s rarity and high cost, theft became a real problem. A pineapple was valuable enough that some owners hired security to guard it, treating the fruit like an expensive piece of jewelry.

How the Pineapple Bubble Burst

The mania couldn’t last once the supply changed. Shipping got faster and importing became cheaper and faster, so pineapples arrived to Europe in far greater numbers after a while. So once middle- and working-class families could finally afford one, the fruit lost the exclusivity that made it a prize.

Where You Can Still See the Obsession

The fruit left its mark on European architecture and design, and you can spot the leftover pineapple motifs if you know to look.

Carved pineapples sit atop the towers of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, a nod to the fruit’s old prestige. The most famous example stands in Scotland, where the Dunmore Pineapple rises as a 45-foot stone folly shaped like the fruit itself.

About the Author

As the editor in chief of Frayed Passport, my goal is to help you build a lifestyle that lets you travel the world whenever you want and however long you want, and not worry about where your next paycheck will come from. I've been to 20+ countries and five continents, lived for years as a full-time digital nomad, and have worked completely remotely since 2015. If you would like to share your story with our community, or partner with Frayed Passport, get in touch with me using the form on our About page.

Featured image by YesMore Content on Unsplash