They’ve been available in my area for some time, although they are quite expensive ($10 or so). A local grocery store had them for $5, so I picked one up a couple days ago.
Okay, I cut the top off and ate a slice of it earlier this evening, and ever since, my mouth, and the tip of my tongue in particular, has felt like it was coated with something very unpleasant. I can’t quite define it; I do know that raw pineapple contains a substance called bromelain that can tenderize meat/cause mouth irritation. Might this have been it, or maybe the pineapple wasn’t fully ripe?
My pineapple actually had a few leaves attached to the top, which was why I chose that particular one. The top is usually completely removed, because they don’t want people growing it outside dedicated pineapple farms. I’ve never had any success growing a pineapple from a pineapple plant.
I realized in the meantime what that coating on my teeth may have been. Ever eaten an unripe persimmon? (If they don’t have obvious soft spots on them, they’re not ready to eat.) It was that icky astringent substance.
I refrigerate mine, which I know you’re really not supposed to do but I’ve heard way too many horror stories about spoiled potatoes. That does slow things down.
Funny timing - just 2 days ago I was at Wegmans and walked by the precut fruit section. I glanced down and thought that container of watermelon looked AWFUL.
Then I looked more closely and realized it was pink pineapple.
I had to buy it.
It tasted exactly like regular pineapple. In other words, a gimmick.
Related: anyone else ever tried the white strawberries? Called pineberry and similar. We saw them in a grocery store in Florida about 3 years back and I was tempted, but did not buy any, so I have no idea how they are.
My friend who recommended it said she thought it was much sweeter than a regular pineapple. Maybe she always got ripe ones, IDK. I have seen the white strawberries, and I’m pretty sure they also taste pretty much the same as red strawberries but they are harder to ship and have a shorter shelf life.
My complaint is the red strawberries where the red exterior is 1/16" thick and the entire interior is hard tasteless unripe white inedibility.
I cannot see how how taking the only useful part of the berry, the red skin, and making that too inedibly unripe and flavorless can be viewed as a useful innovation.
They already destroyed grapefruit by making them pink and sweet and disgusting. I want my traditional 1960s tart white-fleshed yellow-skinned grapefruit. But even here in FL, the grapefruit capital of the USA, white grapefruit are essentially extinct. Bastards!
I cannot imagine pinking a pineapple will do anything but ruin the flavor.
It’s not an innovation, it’s an result of the fact that strawberries are shipped long distances, and cannot be allowed to ripen on the plant, or they’ll get ruined in shipping.
Try some freshly picked from a local strawberry farm, during peak berry season. Those will RUIN you for any supermarket “berries”. I once quipped “some people have to settle for heroin or cocaine”.
Perfectly decent, not extraordinary. They’re solidly good strawberries for a supermarket, sweet and very slightly perfumey. But IMHO they won’t beat fresher in season varieties from a farmer’s market in the summer.
That said there is something to trying novel fruit when they first appear. As novelties they command fancier packaging, premium prices, but usually superior quality control because they are trying to make a splash. As the novelty fades and they become part of more standard mass-produced fruit market, that quality control slips. Sumo citrus/dekapon, rainier cherries, novel apple varieties - the first introduction is usually when you’ll get the best exposure to them. Afterwards they might still be fine (I still buy dekapons and rainiers), but they aren’t as carefully packed and cherry-picked for premium quality as they initially were and as a result are a bit more variable in what you get.