In 18th-century Europe, a single pineapple could be rented as a dinner party centerpiece and left uneaten until it rotted. This deep dive explores how a South American plant broke the brains of the European elite and became one of the world’s biggest agricultural commodities.

We cover the botany of a fruit formed from up to 200 fused flowers arranged in Fibonacci spirals, CAM photosynthesis, and why growers avoid seeds. Then we follow the pineapple from Columbus to heated pineries warmed by fermenting tanbark, the Dunmore Pineapple, James Dole and the Ginaca machine in Hawaii, and today’s plantations in Costa Rica and beyond.

• Why Hawaii banned hummingbirds to protect its pineapple crop from pollination
• How growing one hothouse pineapple once cost the equivalent of about $8,000
• How bromelain tenderizes meat, stings your mouth and ruins gelatin desserts
• Pina fabric from the Philippines, woven from hand-scraped pineapple leaf fibers
• Pesticides, labor conditions, illegal expansion into refuges, cocaine smuggling and pink disease