Rich pickings: Swetha Sivakumar takes a look at ‘designer’ fruit

I’ll admit I don’t understand high fashion. I am flummoxed that there should be a waitlist for a handbag or such a clamour for certain red-soled shoes. But in food, “luxury” usually comes with a fascinating backstory, often involving real cultivation challenges. This week, I’d like to explore a few.

Pineapples: They’re easy enough to get today. They’ve become a key ingredient in dishes ranging from the savoury rasam to the sweet rava kesari. But in 1600s England, the fruit was so rare that King Charles II commissioned a painting of himself receiving a pineapple.
A fad took off, sparking demand that simply couldn’t be met.
Pineapples grow in tropical climates and take one to three years to mature. Finding and shipping them in the quantities needed was difficult (particularly since the English were still working out how to colonise, and take as they pleased). Replicating the necessary conditions in misty, cold England was expensive.
Still, demand was so high that some cultivators built heated greenhouses, called pineries, so they could cultivate the fruit.
Then… something even stranger happened. Because it was so expensive, the fruit began to be displayed as a status symbol, rather than simply eaten.
Pineapples became prized gifts. People even rented them to place on the dining table at parties.
Today this seems absurd, but look closely and the legacy endures: an intricate, tiny replica of a pineapple still sits atop the Wimbledon men’s singles trophy.
Square watermelons: These have been around since the 1970s. A Japanese horticulturist, Tomoyuki Ono, developed the world’s first cubed watermelon. Like so many great ideas, it seems absurdly simple in hindsight. He simply placed a transparent acrylic mould around each young watermelon on a vine. As it grew, it took on the square shape.
Ono figured the shape would make the unwieldy fruit easier to package, store and transport. He soon learnt why produce isn’t square in nature.
The base of his melons had to be manually exposed to the sun, or they developed yellow spots. The square watermelon couldn’t balance its expanding internal mass as well, and often cracked or burst under the pressure.
The acrylic moulds, meanwhile, trapped heat and humidity, leading to mould and pest infestations. Farmers had to and clean the cases, sometimes two and three times a day.
They found they could prevent the cracks and bursting if they harvested the melons early; but, without full ripeness, the fruit was distressingly bland.
The additional labour and effort, meanwhile, made the square watermelons too expensive for regular consumption. So, the segment pivoted.
The square melon became a luxury item, and a “unique gift”. The sense of novelty persists, even though the square version is not as rare as it once was. Cultivation methods remain the same, and prices remain high. They can, in fact, cost thousands per piece.
Bottled pears: It isn’t nearly as magical once you know how it’s done. But in 17th-century Alsace, farmers began to sell pears that came ensconced in a glass bottle filled with a pear-flavoured brandy.
To make the product, they slipped a still-ripening pear into a glass bottle, while it was on the tree. When the pear was ripe, it was taken off the tree and the bottle around it filled with a clear brandy.
Over time, the fruit infused the brandy with its sugars and aromatics, while absorbing some alcohol too. Once all the brandy was drunk, the bottle could be broken to reach the pear (or the boozy fruit sliced and extracted).
While it was still on the tree, however, the pear farmer had to ensure each pear didn’t press against the glass and become misshapen. Once harvested, the bottle had to be carefully cleaned.
The pear-in-a-bottle-of-pear-brandy is still available in Alsace and elsewhere in France. The uniqueness of the product, and the difficulty involved, make these bottles roughly twice as expensive as regular brandy.
Still, it’s considered a good bargain: Add a pear worth just pennies to an already expensively and earn twice as much.
Crown melon: If you’re in the mood to spend serious money on a luxury fruit, you can fork out about ₹16,000 for a single crown melon.
Grown in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture, these melons have been cultivated, using the same intricate methods, for nearly a century. They have a strong aroma and exceptional sweetness, with flesh that apparently melts in the mouth. The farmers achieve this by allowing only one melon to grow per vine, cutting away the others and thereby redirecting all nutrients to the single fruit.
Skilled laborers massage the melons to make the flesh softer; on sunny days, they shield the melons to prevent sunburn.
In Japan, it is called King of Fruits. We, of course, have our own golden king, and I won’t get into the Alphonso vs Others debate here.
But what’s the most you’ve ever paid for a fruit? Write in. I’d love to know.