Pineapple Cream Loaf

A tropical dessert for a summer state of mind.

Mar 18, 2024

“Still Life with a Pineapple” by George Walter Harris, circa 1886. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum

Early spring is an exercise in denial. There’s no real difference between a rainy, 42-degree in March and one in February, but that doesn’t stop me from pretending summer is around the corner the moment I change the calendar. This is the time of year for refusing to wear anything heavier than a denim jacket. It’s when I switch my morning coffee from hot to iced (this guy will be living in my fridge from now through September). It’s when I shove my sweaters to the back of the closet and start shopping for bathing suits I know I won’t be able to wear for several months. Who cares if it looks like a Tim Burton movie outside? Summer is a state of mind.

One of my favorite ways to prepare for the season ahead is by switching up my diet. By the end of winter, I’d be happy if I never saw another bowl of soup again. Usually I mark transitional periods with some seasonal treats, but spring produce always arrives much later than I need it. My local farmers market is currently a no man’s land of cabbage and kale, so instead of waiting for sunnier days to come to me, I’m taking a page out of a 1968 cookbook and leaning harder into my delusion. Anything is possible with canned pineapple.

This week’s recipe for pineapple cream loaf comes from the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. It’s a fairly simple, chilled dessert consisting of lady fingers layered with a creamy, whipped pineapple mixture. Pineapple from a can doesn’t exactly give tropical vibes in 2024, probably because it was so overused in American cooking in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. It was incorporated into desserts as well as casseroles, salads, and of course honey-baked ham. No matter the flavor profile, cooks were determined to shoehorn the fruit into their favorite recipes.

Recipe contest encouraging creative uses for pineapple

With pineapples available at every supermarket today, it can be hard to understand why Americans ever went bananas for it. The trend dates back to Europe’s obsession following the Columbian Exchange. Pineapples had been cultivated in Central and South America for centuries by the time Christopher Columbus stumbled upon them in 1493. He introduced them to Spain where everyone fell in love with the fruit—and that was after it had spent weeks rolling around on a ship.

But unlike other American imports like tomatoes and potatoes, it didn’t immediately infiltrate the continent’s cuisines. The spiny crop is impossible to grow outside tropical conditions, and hothouses were rare and incredibly expensive to maintain at the time. That limited pineapples to the plates of the ultra-wealthy. They were popular with monarchs like Louis XV, which helped reinforce their image as a status symbol. Charles II nicknamed the fruit “King Pine” and commissioned a painting of his gardener John Rose presenting him with the rare treat.

The king's gardener presenting Charles II with a pineapple, circa 17th century.

Caribbean-grown pineapples were easier to ship to the American colonies, but they weren’t any more affordable. The price of an imported pineapple in the 18th century would be equivalent to $8000 in today’s currency. In addition to that cost, many buyers also hired guards to watch over their tropical treasures, as pineapple theft was a common concern.

Some people who paid that much weren’t interested in eating the delicacy—at least not while it was fresh. Instead they displayed it as a centerpiece at parties to flaunt their wealth. Only when the fruit had started to go bad did they cut into it. Colonists who couldn’t afford to do that had the option to rent one for a night. A rental pineapple made an impressive party accessory, kind of like a perishable Birkin bag.

Things changed in the late 19th century. That’s when companies established the first pineapple plantations in Hawaii, and by exploiting cheap labor, colonized land, and new canning technology they were able to transform the prized crop into a global commodity. Dole ran the biggest enterprise, with their Lana’i plantation supplying the majority of the world’s pineapples for decades.

Even after pineapple became available to the masses, it maintained an air of luxury for much longer than it should have. Brands played this up in their marketing. Ads billed pineapple products as a tropical vacation in a can, with an unprocessed version of the fruit often depicted alongside palm trees, surfboards, and smiling native Hawaiians in leis and grass skirts.

Vintage ad for Del Monte pineapple juice

Of course the dishes mainland Americans made with the “exotic” product were about as far from Hawaiian cuisine as possible. It’s hard to imagine the dessert below being consumed within 25 miles of a coastline. That makes it the perfect denial dish for early March: If I can convince myself that 55 degrees and cloudy is t-shirt weather, maybe I can close my eyes and make-believe this is a tropical delicacy.