How to cut a fresh pineapple

We love having fresh pineapple when we're in Mexico. First of all, it's cheap. You can usually buy a fresh pineapple for about 10 pesos (80 cents). We typically buy one per week, so I'm getting pretty good at cutting them up. It wasn't always that way, but practice makes perfect!

Here's how I do it...

First of all, make sure the pineapple is ripe enough to eat. A few years ago back in the state of Veracruz, we bought a pineapple from a street vendor and he said that to tell if it is ripe you have to carefully pull one of the leaves out of the center of the top of the pineapple. If it comes out easily, the pineapple is ripe!

I use a heavy serrated knife for the whole process. First, cut off the top. Don't cut off too much, you don't want to waste any! If you don't cut off enough the first time, you can always cut a little more.

Then cut off the bottom.

Standing the pineapple on either end, it's now time to trim the sides. I try and take off about a 2" strip at a time. Again, don't take off too much!

Then, use the knife to pick off some off the larger seed pods that are leftover. It doesn't have to be perfect because when you eat it, you won't notice the little bits leftover.

This is what it should look like. At this point, you'll want to set aside the pineapple and clean your cutting board of all the little trimmings.

Next, cut your pineapple in half, directly through the core. Not all pineapples are totally symmetrical, so check both ends to try and cut through the middle as accurately as possible. It may not be an exactly straight cut!

Then cut the halves into quarters.

Now it's easy to cut the core out of each quarter piece.

Then cut each quarter again in the lengthwise direction.

And then cutting across into bite sized pieces.

And there you have it!

The entire process now takes me far less than five minutes! We eat a few pieces then and there, but we like it cold, so we put it in a container and into the fridge. The next day, it is a great mid morning snack after our daily exercises! Sweet, delicious, juicy, fresh pineapple!