Pineapple ice is a golden, refreshing treat in summer.
I was never a child who liked pineapple.
Compared with my grandmother and my mother, who could tolerate a lot of acidity, as a child I could not eat anything sour at all, so naturally I did not like pineapple either. Sometimes it would even make my mouth sore, and I never understood why anyone would be willing to eat such a fruit.
Taiwan Pineapple Canned Pineapple
Still, every time I went to my grandmother's house to play, she would always bring out a small can, slowly open it with a can opener, and pour out the syrup. The pineapple inside was round with a hole in the middle, and the yellow color was quite beautiful. Worried about my grandmother's severe diabetes and worried that the children would eat too much sugar, my mother always warned us not to drink the syrup. But my mother always had moments when she was not paying attention, and my grandmother and I would take advantage of the moment the can was just opened to secretly drink a few sips of that pineapple syrup. It was very sweet and fragrant, the very essence of the whole can of pineapple! The pineapple inside was not sour at all and did not scrape the mouth, so no matter how much you ate, you did not have to worry. My fond childhood memories of pineapple seemed to be sealed inside that can of pineapple.
Homemade Pineapple Ice
A little older, on a certain summer afternoon, my mother was sweating in the kitchen cooking a pot of something, and there was the smell of pineapple and the fragrance of sugar. I asked what it was. My mother only said: I am making something we often ate when we were children for you to eat. While the whole pot of pineapple was still hot, I scooped out a bite to taste, and it was a pineapple flavor even more fragrant and richer than canned pineapple. After it cooled, we ladled it spoon by spoon into popsicle bags printed with a fake Mickey Mouse pattern, and after freezing overnight in the freezer, we could enjoy pineapple popsicles the next day.
Homemade pineapple popsicles are always like this: at first you can hardly taste any pineapple, but in the last few bites there is a lot of pineapple flesh. The good stuff sinks to the bottom, which is probably just how it is. After the pineapple is cooked and then frozen, the fibers are all soft, the sourness is gone, and it is just a sweet pineapple flavor. This taste carried us through several sweltering summers.
But with the improvement of varieties, pineapples are now sweeter and sweeter, and there is no need to cook them before eating sweet pineapple fresh. Occasionally when I want pineapple ice, the pineapple syrup drizzled on it in ice shops is always so far, far from the taste in my memory.
It was not until recently, when the native pineapple from Lunshan in Hualien was harvested, that sometimes there were bruised or bad ones. Colleagues in the office cut them to eat and found some were too sour, so they washed the pineapple peel clean, cut the flesh into small pieces, threw them into water with sugar, and simmered them together for a few tens of minutes, drinking it directly as a beverage. Only then did that sweet summer taste come back.
I do not know whether everyone has tried making pineapple ice themselves. I guarantee the taste is completely different from commercially sold pineapple syrup and pineapple ice. This summer you must give it a try.
How to Make Native Pineapple Ice
- After peeling the native pineapple, cut the flesh into small pieces; the core can be kept or discarded
- Put the native pineapple, cold water, and sugar (cane sugar or granulated sugar both work) into a pot and cook together
- After it comes to a boil, continue simmering until the pineapple fibers begin to soften
- After cooling, it can be chilled directly in the refrigerator and drunk as a summer heat-relieving beverage
- Or put the cooked pineapple water into popsicle bags or ice cube trays to make pineapple ice
Because the native pineapple from Lunshan is not treated with chemical fertilizers or herbicides, the cut-off peel can also be scrubbed clean and then boiled directly with cold water, and chilled in the refrigerator to drink as a beverage! The taste is excellent! Introduction to the story of Lunshan native pineapple and the ordering page: http://goo.gl/Me28s