Pineapple Trouble
Pizza Hawaii is probably the most controversial pizza in the world – it was (of course) not invented by an Italian
Some love them, others hate them – Pizza Hawaii.
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Opinions have been divided on the Hawaiian pizza for decades. Hardly any other topping in the history of pizza caused as much discord as pineapple. It was not invented by an Italian, but by the Greek Sam Panopoulos.
For some it is a masterpiece, for others a sacrilege. Pizza Hawaii has always divided pizza lovers into two camps. You either love the sweet fruit on a hearty basis or you hate it. Hardly any pizza topping has caused as much discord as the pineapple. The creation has nevertheless prevailed. In the meantime, the Hawaiian pizza has achieved cult status and it is hard to imagine pizzerias around the world without it.
It was a Greek who invented the controversial ham and pineapple composition. Sam Panopoulos emigrated to Canada in the 1950s, where he initially worked in the mines. Later he ran several restaurants with his two brothers. Including the Satellite in Chatham. According to the story, he is said to have invented the Hawaiian pizza in 1962.
“Toronto knew nothing regarding pizza”
Panopoulos came to Canada by ship. The first stop on the way: Naples. There he got a taste for pizza, as he reported years ago to “Atlas Obscura”. Panopoulos later began to experiment with the Italian specialty himself in Canada – without having the faintest idea of the recipe or the way it was made. The Greek just started.
At the time, pizza wasn’t a big deal in Canada. On the contrary. “Pizza wasn’t really known at all. Even Toronto didn’t know anything regarding pizza,” he said in the same interview. In the middle of the 20th century, pizza didn’t have the status it has today. Especially since it was first introduced to a broader US audience in 1944 in an article in the New York Times.
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“Pizza was primitive back then”
“The pizza that existed in Canada back then was primitive,” Panopoulos recalled. It consisted mainly of dough, sauce, cheese and a topping. The selection was reduced to bacon, mushrooms and pepperoni. “That was all. You didn’t have a choice. You might only get one of the three or several of them together.”
But Panopoulos wanted more. Combining sweet and savory, he threw ham, bacon and pineapple together on the pizza. “We just put it on, just for fun, to see how it tastes,” the Greek once told the BBC. While others called him crazy, he loved his creation and the “Hawaiian Pizza” was born. The pineapple on the pizza should prevail worldwide. The station wagon might have made him rich. Only: Panopoulos never found a way to patent his masterpiece.
As already mentioned, there are at least as many enemies as friends of the exotic pizza variant. In 2017, Icelandic President Guðni Jóhannesson caused an international stir by telling schoolchildren that he would like to ban pineapples on pizza. That even brought Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau onto the agenda. In a tweet with the hashtag #teampineapple, he defended the Canadian invention: “I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious creation from Southwest Ontario.” Jóhannesson then defended himself: “I like pineapple, just not on pizza. I don’t have the power to make laws that forbid people to put pineapple on their pizza. I’m glad I don’t have that kind of power .”
Sam Panopoulos, the inventor of the Hawaiian pizza, died in London in 2017. On August 20, Sam Panopoulos would have been 86 years old.
swell:Dark Atlas, BBC, CBC, Washington Post
