"a pineapple sandwich is one of those foods that it seems only Southerners love and appreciate." Southern Living
This one began with a link in the Smitten Kitchen weekly newsletter, to an article on the Eater website in which Margaret Eby - author of a recent book You Gotta Eat, talked about how to cope with those times when you really don't feel like cooking.
In that interview she mentioned the pineapple sandwich:
"The one sandwich that always makes people freak out at me is the mayonnaise and pineapple one. Everyone is going along with the ride, and then I’m like, Have you tried canned pineapple and mayonnaise? And everyone’s getting off the train. But you try it and it’s pretty good! It feels very like born of the Great Depression, or maybe a stoner thing, but it is a flavor combination that really works," Margaret Eby/Eater
Of course it rang a bell, because of my yesterday post on Kewpie mayonnaise - yet another small coincidence in life - so I decided to investigate - the sandwich itself - and also whether that particular flavour combination has been put into rather more ambitious service elsewhere.
Almost the first thing I found was this picture on reddit, headlined with the words:
"Girlfriend’s mom made pineapple topped with mayonnaise and cheddar cheese. Truly an abomination" shittyfoodporn/reddit
to which 'rippydip' replied:
"Clearly her brain is deteriorating. She forgot the tomato sauce"
One cringes but is amused all at the same time. Obviously these people are not Southerners, And I suspect I'm with them on this, although I have never tried it, and maybe it's one of those things at which the rest of the world throws up their hands in disbelief - chip butties, beetroot in hamburgers ... but which is actually a taste sensation. As the lady says it has a whiff of poverty and ignorance about it.
Origins? Well I only found one story about which I have my doubts, I have to say, as it comes from a magazine called Tailgater Magazine. Would you trust anything from that?:
The pineapple sandwich (PS) originated in 1898 in the town of Pine Apple (two words), Alabama, but wasn’t popular until the early 1900s when Lucille Studley, a Minnesota native, successfully canned pineapple—not in actual cans but in glass jars—which eliminated the need to buy fresh pineapple for quick consumption."
I suspect this is a tongue-in-cheek joke - I can find no reference to Lucille Studley for a start.
I guess it's just much more likely that either Dole - the major pineapple canners - came up with the idea to promote their product, or somebody just tried it one day and it spread. I did find several posts however from Southerners, talking nostalgically about the pineapple sandwich in their lunchboxes or made by 'mom' when they got home from school. So it's a comfort/nostalgia food for which we develop a fondness but with no logical reason, because - honestly - it's not the best food option around - even for the poor. But it reminds us of good/innocent times. And certainly the rest of America doesn't get it - e.g.:
"for some reason, I can’t wrap my Colorado head around this simple combo. Maybe if there were some ham, I’d get it? If the pineapple were grilled, the bread toasted?" Simple Most
Yes if the pineapple were grilled or the bread toasted. For when I went looking for more gourmet experiments with pineapple and mayonnaise, that indeed was one option, most often realised in the form of a hamburger as here, although there were lots of other variations. This one is almost fancy. It's from a website called Dream Dinners who won't let me look at their site because I'm outside of the USA, Mexico and Canada and therefore they can't sell me their dinners. But it actually looked almost OK - it's called Pineapple chicken burgers with wasabi mayo and sweet potato fries. A sort of sandwich too.
As is our own Coles Hawaiian hot dogs with pineapple salsa, although the pineapple is not grilled here - just the bun and the hot dog. But there is mayonnaise mixed with srirarcha sauce and lime juice. And the pineapple is also from a tin - well it's really another recipe from Dole.
Still on bread, still in Australia and upping the ante yet more we have chef Luke Mangan and his Tempura prawn tortillas with pineapple salsa and chipotle mayo. It's sort of a sandwich but fresh pineapple and the mayonnaise is boosted with chipotle chillies in adobo sauce - wherever you get that from. A long way from a Southern USA pineapple and mayonnanise sandwich - and yet not. They're still not really doing a lot with the mayonnaise, other than using it as a boosted sauce.
Matt Preston, on sauce, had a couple of suggestions for hybrid sauces:
"Ugly Delicious creator and Momofuku founder, David Chang, is a savant when it comes to combo condi saucing. His finest work is mixing Japanese Kewpie mayo with a few drops of Maggi liquid seasoning for a riot of glutamates, but add a few drops of hickory liquid smoke and you please those smoked barbecue sauce fans, too. Let’s bottle it."
or:
Brazil sauce - The Belgians have a knack for creating sauces to slather on their hot chip obsession. Their Brazil sauce mixes mayo with crushed pineapple and curry powder."
But I'm sure there are heaps of others. Ottolenghi failed me here today. Yes he mixes things with mayonnaise, and does fancy things with pineapple, but not, as far as I can gather, with the two together. Maybe in a slaw somewhere, because, of course, slaw is a prime candidate for a pairing of pineapple and mayonnaise. There are countless recipes on the net represented here by a rather wonderful looking Coles recipe for Sticky pork and pineapple slaw.
But there are other salads of course - in fact this is probably the largest category of dishes for pineapple and mayonnaise - so just two examples: Sticky chicken and chilli pineapple salad - Phoebe Wood/delicious. - thoe things that look like chips are actually sticks of pineapple, and Tropical tuna and pineapple salad - Taste
Sort of a long way from a simple pineapple and mayonnaise sandwich, although one could in fact imagine cramming the ingredients of those salads into some kind of wrap or sliced bread.
Much more 'fancy' however than the original pineapple/mayo sandwich. But even that, simple as it is, can be made to look just a little bit better with a tiny bit of imagination - as in these Ham, cheese and pineapple bagels/Dixie Elliott/Taste - as the lady in Colorado said - maybe a bit of ham, a bit of cheese and toasted ...
Several of those recipes insisted on Kewpie mayonnaise by the way. I suspect that pineapple and mayonnaise is not however a really wonderful pairing - not as the main point of the dish anyway. Sure the pineapple can be included in something else - probably a salad or wrap/sandwich of some kind, that has mayonnaise to hold it all together - but not as a star combination.
POSTSCRIPT
September 17
2023 - To keep or not to keep
2022 - Nothing - still in Port Douglas
2020 - Rubired and mega purple
2018 - Like milk - really?
2017 - Yoyos or melting moments?
2016 - The magpies song
Very witty! I particularly liked the comment about "she forget"the tomato source" on top of all the other horrible ingredients. Pineapple by itself is beast 😎