A Polynesian Pioneer?

In his 1822 “Dissertation on Roast Pig,” the witty English essayist Charles Lamb waxed eloquent on the subject of roast suckling pig:

“The very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance, with the adhesive oleaginous--oh, call it not fat, but an indefinable sweetness--growing up to it; the tender blossoming of fat, fat cropped in the bud, taken in the shoot, in the first innocence, the cream and quintessence of the child-pig’s yet pure food . . .

“See [the pig] in the dish, his second cradle; how meek he lieth! Wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation. From these sins he is happily snatched away.”

In the same essay he had some kind words about pineapple, too--pretty kind, anyway:

“Pineapple is great. She is indeed almost too transcendent a delight; if not sinful, yet so like to sinning that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause. Too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her. Like lovers’ kisses, she biteth; she is a pleasure bordering on pain, from the fierceness and insanity of her relish.

“But she stoppeth at the palate. She meddleth not with the appetite, and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop.”

If only he had lived long enough to see Polynesian cuisine, with its perennial marriage of pig and pineapple.