Text and pictures by Eki Qushay Akhwan
This is how pineapples are sold here: hanged!
Makeshift stalls selling nanas/nenas (the Indonesian word for pineapples) like in the bottom photo can be found in many parts of the city. This one is on Setiabudhi street in the north of Bandung, right across the street from the Indonesia University of Education campus.
These pineapples come from Subang, a town and regency about 60 kilometers north of Bandung. Nanas Subang are known for its larger size, and not too sweet and more juicy flesh. Subang is Indonesia's second largest producer of pineapples after Lampung in the southern part of Sumatra island.
Bits and Pieces about Pineapples
Pipeapples (ananas comosus) are not native to Asia. They are originally from South America (Brazil and Paraguay) where they are called nanas.
The pineapple is not a single fruit as it appears to be, but a collection of multiple, spirally-arranged flowers, each of which produces a fleshy fruit that becomes pressed against the fruits of adjacent flowers, forming what appears to be a single fleshy fruit.
"Pineapple," the English word for this kind of fruit, was originally used to name what we now call "pine cone" - the reproductive organ of conifer tree. The use of this word was first recorded in 1398. Europeans discovering nanas called it pineapple because of this fruit's resemblace to what we now call "pine cone". The use of the word "pineapple" that refers to this kind of fruit was first recorded in 1664.
(source: Wikipedia).
11 comments:
Hello eki and I'm pleased you found my blog. I'm very happy to return the visit and will try and drop in from time to time. I think I may have visited before but I don't always comment when I visit blogs. So many wonderful blogs to visit and so little time.
Marvelous information! Thank you. I finally figured out that they're hanging upside down, and I like that picture.
hi. Ilike pineapple more.
Très belle présentation dans ce petit commerce. Une oeuvre d'art avec ces "pineapple". J'espère que la vente se fait bien.
Et merci pour vos visites sur mon blog.
Hey..that's cute :)
Pineapples are sold as cut fruits here. They are popular ingredients in assam laksa and pineapple tarts! Pineapple tarts are one of the most popular cookie around festive season here.
Do you have that over in Bandung?
Here we mostly know pineapple in a can, so it is so nice to see your fresh ones hanging. That first photo is fascinating!
So do they leave a little part on the end like a handle, to tie them from?
In Hebrew we call pineapple ananas.
Yummy! Now my mouth is watering! Have to get some for the house soon. I really just hate having to peel them — I don't find it easy.
Hanging them actually makes perfect sense. You don't want the bottoms all squished, after all.
nice photo eki! and that info about pineapple is just great!I didn't know that its not a whole fruit but a group of fruits pressed together.
I didn't know the history of the pineapple. Your city is so interesting. I was thinking of your blog when I was in upstate NY and taking some photos. Some people gave me kind of a funny look at I took photos. I just smiled and was not taking any of people, just things. But I think it made some people uncomfortable.
pineapples....yum yum yum...One of my favorite fruits. but it is not a family of apples, so why do American call it pine-apples? 'pine' is alright to me, but 'apple'? they really have different taste...really...
Subang is the most well known town in West Java for it's pineapples. 'Si madu' is the sweetest pineapple in Subang. Wanna try? Just come to Subang, in the north of Lembang.
I don't know in Paraguay, but in Brazil the pineapple is called Abacaxi or Ananas (not nanas). In someplaces, abacaxi and ananás are known like two different tipes of this fruit.
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