Cut a Pineapple the Mexican Way! No Digging Out the Eyes, No Waste! Clean & Simple

Get La Cocina de Bertha, every recipe in this kitchen written down (372 pages): https://berthascookbook.com Mija, bring me that pineapple you have been afraid of. When I was a girl in Guadalajara, the frutero on our corner turned a whole pineapple into a golden spiral on a stick in about a minute, and what he threw away would not fill my hand. Here are his seven tricks, and the last one is the real meaning of no waste. ⭐ THE 7 TRICKS 1. BUY IT RIPE. A pineapple never gets sweeter at home. Smell the BOTTOM (sweet = ripe, nothing = green, wine = too far) and take the heavier one. 2. WASH THE SKIN with cool water and a brush, no soap. Dry it. 3. THE CROWN IS YOUR HANDLE. Cut off only the bottom so it stands. Hold it by the leaves the whole time. 4. ONLY THE SKIN, leave the eyes. One long stroke top to bottom, strips two fingers wide. The back of the strip should be nearly all brown, and the fruit should still be covered in dark spots. 5. THE SPIRAL. The eyes run in diagonal lines. One tilted cut on each side of a row so they meet in a V, lift the wedge, 6 or 7 eyes at once. Turn and repeat all the way around. 6. ON A STICK OR IN A CUP. Quarters on a thick skewer pushed into the core, or long spears with the core sliced off. Lime, chile powder, and a pinch of salt (or a chile-lime salt like Tajín). 7. NO WASTE: the peel and the core become TEPACHE. ⭐ TEPACHE (my mother's, never written down until now) • The washed peel and core of 1 pineapple • 1 cone of piloncillo (about 8 oz) or 1 cup brown sugar • 1 stick of canela, 2 to 3 whole cloves • About 2 quarts of water Big clean glass jar, stir, cover with a cloth and a rubber band (not a tight lid). Counter, 2 days in warm weather, 3 in a cool kitchen. Bubbles and light white foam are what you want. Skim, taste, strain, refrigerate, serve over ice. HONEST: tepache is fermented, so it carries a small trace of alcohol, more the longer it sits. Anything fuzzy or colored on top (blue, green, black) → throw it out and start again. NO-FERMENT ROAD: simmer the same peel, core, sugar and canela in the water 20 minutes, strain, chill. That is agua de piña. Forgot it for a week? It is now pineapple vinegar. Cook with it. THE HONEST WORDS: • Lost a lot of fruit → strips too wide or too deep. • Ragged grooves → the small knife was dull. • Sour pineapple → picked green. Nothing fixes that at home. • Sticky hands → you let go of the crown. WHO PROFITS: the plastic tub of cut pineapple is $6 to $7 for about half a fruit. The whole pineapple is about $3. And the corer gadget does one slice of a job your knife already does (page 55). THE HABIT: on sale, buy two. One for today with chile and lime, one in spears in the fridge (3 to 4 days), both peels in the jar. And the sticky cutting board and the sweet spots on the counter? That is the other half of my life: 🧼 Clean The Mexican Way → [link to cleaning channel] If half of your pineapple always went in the trash, it was never because you were careless. Nobody ever showed you. Tell me in the comments: plain pineapple house, or chile and lime house? I read every one. CHAPTERS 0:00 Afraid of pineapple 0:44 The frutero's secret 1:54 1. Buy it ripe 2:52 2. Wash the skin 3:22 3. Hold the crown 4:01 4. Only the skin 5:31 5. The spiral 6:54 6. Stick or cup 8:24 7. Tepache 9:47 The honest part 10:40 Common mistakes 11:07 Who profits 11:50 The habit