The Surprising Reason Pineapples Symbolize Hospitality

The popularity of pineapples extended to the colonial United States, where they were imported from the Caribbean and sold for about $8,000 in today's money. Because of the pineapple's role as a status symbol, those who could afford it would throw dinner parties and display their pineapple as a centerpiece, where it would serve as "a symbol of their wealth, hospitality, and status, instantly recognizable by a party's guests," says Mental Floss. A pineapple's role as centerpiece was more important that its role as food, and those privileged enough to have a pineapple generally didn't eat it until it started rotting.

As reported by Atlas Obscura, pineapples were used during the Napoleonic Era by political cartoonists to represent extravagance, and by the 1600s even the Christian church had gotten in on the craze once architect Christopher Wren started adding them to church finials.

Pineapples continue to be associated with hospitality to this day; in fact, the book Welcome To Hospitality: An Introduction, first published in 1994, notes "A universal symbol for hospitality is the pineapple." Colonial decor tends to include images of pineapples, although the trend of displaying a rotting pineapple as a centerpiece is, fortunately, a thing of the past. Several hotels use pineapples in their branding, including Preferred Hotels & Resorts and the Staypineapple collection of boutique hotels.