If you want to make a jelled salad with pineapple, you’d better not use fresh pineapple, or you’ll end up with a soupy mess. On the other hand, only fresh pineapple will work as a meat tenderizer. Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus found Indians in the Caribbean using pineapple juice to soften their skin, clean their wounds, remove body-hair, and to cure upset stomach. The secret of the pineapple is an enzyme called “bromelain,” which is similar to the enzymes that our own digestive system uses to break down protein. When you marinate meat in fresh pineapple juice, the bromelain begins breaking down the proteins so that by the time the meat gets to your mouth, the digestion is already begun.