Pineapple

Intro

Welcome to the third episode of Big Island Big Eats, the Hawaii Island food podcast. Today’s episode is all about pineapple! We’re going to walk you through how to pick one and what to do with every part of it.

Picking a Pineapple

Recently the county of Hawaii stopped recycling all plastics except for bottle deposits. This got me thinking about trying for more zero waste options. Pineapples are a great choice for zero waste. First, you don’t have to put them in a plastic produce bag. They are perfectly fine just sitting there au natural.

Second, you can use all parts of the fruit, from the leaves at the top to the peels, which we’ll get into later.

Finally on Hawaii Island they are pretty reasonably priced, generally about a dollar a pound. Apples, for comparison, run about $3.50 per pound or more. It’s good to eat local!

Picking a pineapple at the store can be a daunting task. It is a big investment, both in size and cost, but looking for a few things can help you pick out the perfect fruit. I have a process which works pretty well, though sometimes I get stinkeye from the other shoppers.

First, you have to pick by color. You want a fruit that is not too green, but no too yellow or brown. The fruit should be firm but not hard.

Now, turn it over because the bottom of a pineapple is always the first thing to become bruised and overripe. Look at the bottom. Is it super moldy? There is almost always going to be a little white mold on the bottom of a pineapple, but you want to avoid anything excessive or another mold color than white.

Next, poke it a little around the outer edge of the bottom. Is it too soft? If the bottom is soft, the flesh is going to probably be brown and icky by the time you cut into it.

Now this is the step that sometimes gets me some looks. Smell the bottom. Lift it to your face and take a real good whiff. You want to smell a hint of pineapple. If you can’t smell it, it probably isn’t ripe enough. If it’s sickly sweet, it might be going over already.

Really if it makes me hungry for pineapple when I smell it, I go for it. I think we all have a gut feeling when smelling good fruit from bad that works pretty well.

My final test is to try to pull a leaf from the inside of the crown. If it stays in, it’s good. If it pulls out easily, the fruit is probably overripe.

That’s it. Throw it in your cart!

Now, there are tons of ways to slice up your pineapple once you get it home.

One intriguing one online includes ripping off the crown and then picking the meat off “scale by scale," so you don’t even have to skin the fruit.

 We usually just slice down the sides to cut the skin off, then lay it on its side and cut slices, but you do you. There are plenty of YouTube videos and I’ve left a link in the shownotes to get you to a few of them.

My only suggestion here is to be careful about getting all the brown bits of skin off the sides and to also cut out the hard core in the middle. Both are really fibrous and hard to chew. Not big eats.

The most important thing to remember is to make sure you wash it before you slice it up, because you are going to want to keep all the parts for today’s recipe.

Tepache Recipe

And now let’s get into our recipe for today: Tepache! Tepache is a quickly fermented, mildly alcoholic drink made with pineapple, sugar, and spice. It relies on the native yeast and temperature in your area to ferment.

We followed the recipe from Mexico in My Kitchen. The link is in the show notes.

This is a super easy way to get some free booze and make sure that all parts of your pineapple get used.

First you need a jar. Now, a side note. Before we get started, please keep safety in mind. If you use a jar with a screw-top lid, don’t fasten the lid. The pressure that builds up with the fermentation can turn the lid into a projectile. Ask me sometime about a classmate’s ethanol experiment in high school. He blew a hole with the plastic cap through the science lab sink because of the pressure. But back to the jar. Since we’re doing zero waste, I used a nice big pickle jar. You’re going to want something that can hold three or more quarts.

Make sure your jar is squeaky clean. Then shove all the pieces you cut off your pineapple you didn’t use: the skin, the core, whatever. Leave out the moldy bits from the bottom, though.

The scraps from one pineapple will take a cup of sugar. Pour that into the jar.

I added a cinnamon stick and some cloves as suggested by the original recipe.

Finally add two quarts of filtered water. At this point, I put the lid on and shook it to mix the sugar up.

Gently place the lid on top or cover with plastic wrap or cheesecloth.
If you live in a warm environment, check it after twelve hours and skim off any white foam. If you have AC or live where it’s colder, give it another twenty-four hours.

Let it set another 36 hours or so. Strain it into another clean jar (or pitcher if you are going to consume right away) and stick it in the fridge.

As part of zero waste here, you should take the fermented pineapple chunks to your chickens, pigs, or feed them to your garden itself.

Enjoy over ice, maybe with a li hing mui rim.

Or if 2% alcohol isn’t enough kick for you, throw in a shot of vodka or rum. It tastes like pineapple soda if everything went right and who wouldn’t want a boozy pineapple soda?

Li Hing Mui

Li hing mui is our ingredient for the day. It pairs wonderfully with pineapple in several ways.

What exactly is li hing mui? It’s powdered, salted preserved plums. Very Japanese, but this is a totally Hawaiian flavor. As you would assume, it is salty and sour and goes a long way to making a few common things taste amazing.

The first time we had it was at the deli in Malama Market in Pahoa. They have fresh sliced pineapple dusted with the red powder and it’s probably the single best flavoring pairing for li hing mui.

This is a common side at poke shops, and should not be passed up if it is available. Suisan’s in Hilo has the best, and we get it every time, no matter what else is available.

Li hing mui also makes a great rim for margaritas or pineapple daiquiris. We’ve left a link in the show notes where you buy li hing mui if you aren’t on island.

If you are on island, find the local snack aisle at your closest Longs or KTA.

Growing pineapple

We talked about how this is a zero waste fruit, so let’s start at the top and work our way down. You can replant the top of the pineapple to get a new pineapple plant.

Rip off the top rather than slicing it off.

Let it dry for a few days.

And on Hawaii Island, all you have to do it stick it in the ground.

After speaking to a landscaper/gardener lady a couple years back, you can do two other things to help it grow. One is fertilize it with citrus fertilizer. You can find that at just about any hardware or garden store (or you can find the link to buy online in the show notes). The other thing is to weed around it on a regular basis. Growing is easy in Hawaii but that means growing weeds is easy too and they can slowly choke out the plants you want to keep.

It will take years to get a fruit, but the large green plants make nice (and free) landscape filler.

If you don’t live in Hawaii, you can grow pineapple as an indoor plant. If it’s in a pot, you may leave it out on the patio in the summer months and then bring it inside when the temperatures get too low. It may never fruit, but it does have nice, tropical foliage to liven up your home.

Links:

• Pineapple slicing: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cutting+pineapple
• Growing pineapple: https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/flowers-and-plants/fruit/how-to-grow-pineapple-plants
• Tepache recipe: https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/homemade-pineapple-brew/