We well remember the funny words our children said as they learned to talk.
Angelin said, “bisticks” instead of “biscuits. Laura said “grips” instead of “grits” and my son Jimmie had an extensive dialect. He called buzzards “bustards”, he referred to roosters as “doodle-o’s” He referred to fish as “sous” and he called pineapples, “apple pines”.
Nancy and I still use those words in our vocabularies, which brings us to “apple pines.”
Recently, I have been trying to eat a piece or two of fruit each morning for breakfast and again for lunch. My normal go-to fruits are honeydew melons and cantaloupes, with an occasional naval orange or maybe a banana. The melons have been hit or miss of late. I bought a honeydew last week that was absolutely tasteless – $4 down the drain.
But apple-pines (pineapples) are almost always delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a bad one. They are inexpensive ($3 on average, sometimes less) and quite healthy.
The pineapple is a tropical plant, indigenous to South America. Hawaii is a large producer of the fruit. They told me on my last visit to Hawaii that you can cut a pineapple in half, put the top part on the ground, you’ll have a pineapple tree growing there within a year.
Pineapples are quite nutritious. They are full of antioxidants, they aid digestion, boost immunity and may even reduce your risk of cancer.
The only drawback to a pineapple is they come with those gnarly husks that must be removed. I have found, however, that I can prepare a pineapple the for the table in less time than it takes to decapitate a cantaloupe, remove the seeds and outside shell, and carve it into edible pieces.
So, I have been buying and enjoying apple pines most frequently. Occasionally I’ll even have them for breakfast with “bisticks” and “grips.”