my secret pineapple experiment
one of the first moments when i really understood how much [my boyfriend’s teenage daughter] Greta’s tastes differ from mine was when she told me that she hated pineapple. not just that she “wasn’t a big fan,” mind you, but that she hated it. she scrunched up her face and frowned with such repulsion that i wondered whether her parents had used a pineapple as a torture device on her as a child, perhaps as punishment for some bratty thing she once did which has long been repressed from everyone’s memory.
“w-why?” i asked her, shocked. “i don’t think i’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like pineapple!“
“i hate it,” Greta reiterated. “i used to hate mangoes too, but now i can eat those sometimes. i mean it’s not my preference, but i guess i’ll eat mangoes if i have to. but never pineapple.”
“but why?”
she laughed shyly and explained that it had to do with the texture and how sour they taste. i tried to keep my face as expressionless as possible but i’d be lying if I said I didn’t interpret her hatred towards these fruits as some type of subliminal xenophobia. Greta loves blueberries and cherries and strawberries; plenty of other sweet-and-sour fruits that grow natively in Germany! surely there is no reason for her to hate pineapple and mango apart from an undeniable hatred of ‘the other.’
of course my initial reaction was harsh and certainly untrue! it’s just that pineapple and mango are two of the things i closely associate with my trips to taiwan, where i haven’t been back to since the spring of 2006, so there’s a low-grade uncertainty and yearning woven into any thought of mine which grazes the topic. during each of my visits to the island at the ages of 9, 11 and 20, plates of freshly cut pineapple, mango and other tropical delights like starfruit, lychee, guava and papaya were often the centerpieces of large family gatherings where i found myself uncomfortably encircled by distant relatives who asked questions layered with implications that i couldn’t understand. i would slouch and reach for a toothpick, stab it into various cubed fruits, and fill my cheeks up with their tangy juices, using extra time to chew and swallow as my excuse to say as little as possible.
a favorite treat of mine, pineapple cake, happens to also be one of taiwan’s most well-known culinary exports. to be fair, that jammy version of pineapple which appears between layers of buttery pastry is so far mashed up and transformed from its initial state that i’m fairly confident that even Greta would happily eat it, provided that there was enough sugar in the preserves to squelch the acidic properties of the pineapple. that is, aside from the fact that i don’t believe a gluten-free and vegan version of pineapple cake exists, and Greta both has celiac’s and an unrelenting moral stance against the meat-and-dairy industry.
Ulrich and I are planning to visit taiwan together for the first time next winter if all goes well (i.e. if Xi Jinping doesn’t “resolve” the taiwan issue before then). Greta won’t be joining us for several reasons: she has a phobia of flying, for starters, plus Ulrich and I thought it would be better for him to meet my relatives first before folding his kids into that complicated tangle of cultural-familial differences. but this, in fact, buys me more time to tackle my secret pineapple experiment, whose central question is this: is there a plausible backdoor into Greta’s belly, some incarnation of pineapple that she will not only tolerate but perhaps - dare i say it? - even find irresistibly delicious?