Pineapples – peeling them right and recognizing ripe ones

A fresh pineapple tastes wonderfully exotic, but at first glance it doesn’t seem that easy to cut it. However, with a few tips and tricks, you can easily chop up the tropical fruit.

How to recognize ripe pineapples

Of course, before you can cut the pineapple, you must first get one. Only ripe fruits taste really good, and they are also much easier to cut up. The best way to tell when a pineapple is ripe is by its scent. The more intense and aromatic the scent, the riper the pineapple. So feel free to sniff the fruit before it ends up in the shopping cart. Ripe pineapples can also be recognized by the fact that the leaves can be detached more easily and the flesh yields when pressed lightly with a finger. Some also recognize the degree of ripeness by the relief of the shell. A particularly pronounced relief therefore indicates a particularly aromatic and tasty specimen.

Cut the pineapple properly

To cut a pineapple as easily as possible, first separate the bottom and top of the fruit with a long, sharp knife. This works best with a serrated knife. Then stand the pineapple upright on a cutting board and peel off the peel all around, in strips. All you have to do now is quarter the fruit and remove the firm stalk in the middle, then you can cut the pineapple into bite-sized pieces and enjoy.

Where does the burning in the mouth come from when eating fresh pineapple?

Use a different knife for chopping the flesh than for separating the peel! This contains an acid that can cause unpleasant swelling and even inflammation of the oral mucosa. You should eat the cut pineapple quickly or process it further, for example in a delicious curry dish. Unfortunately, once a pineapple has been cut, it spoils quickly.