Pizza and pineapple, With some people you will reach instand irritation and with others you will create hunger and happiness. Why is this?
Although the pizza has been given the name pizza Hawaii, this variant comes from Canada.
Sweet and savory, the perfect combination?
Sweet and savory, the perfect combination, they say at team pineapple, a savory pizza with a sweet, crunchy bite from the delicious yellow fruit.
Hawaiian pizza was invented in the 1960s by Canadian immigrant Greek Sam Panopoulos, who started a restaurant in Chatham with his two brothers. He was probably inspired by his experience in preparing Chinese meals where sweet and sour flavors are combined. The experiment, with canned pineapple left over on a pizza with ham, was a success. He created this recipe and reinterpreted an old favorite that never disappoints. Hawaii has never tasted so good! And the pizza became a worldwide success (with some people).
In 2017, Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson that he would prefer a total ban on pineapple pizzas. The president is not alone in his opinion, as it turns out two years later. The Sicilian top chef Peppe Giacomazza said that a lot is possible in terms of pizza toppings, but that pineapple on a pizza is out of the question. “I don’t like pineapple alone on pizza: this taste doesn’t fit with the basic ingredients such as tomato, mozzarella and basil.” According to the Sicilian chef.
The endless discussion
In Italy it is a no go and you will not easily find the pizza on the menu, but in America and even here in the Netherlands you will find it regularly on the menu. However, there is a pizza supplier in the Netherlands that has removed Hawaiian pizza from its range to avoid the discussion.
It remains an eternal and endless discussion. You are either team pineapple or team no pineapple. What do we think? At Donna Italia, the authentic Italian pizzas come from Italy and we will therefore not soon put pineapple on our pizza ourselves, but because our customers can mature their pizzas themselves, it will not be ruled out soon.
And where one likes this, another does not, this does not matter for us.
Written by Rosanne – Donna Italia