The combination of ham and pineapple is a pizza topping that few Italians approve of. That this pizza does not come from Italy may therefore sound logical. But it wasn’t invented in Hawaii either. TRAVELBOOK knows where the Pizza Hawaii actually comes from.
It’s the pizza that causes endless discussion in families and groups of friends. Some find the toppings of ham, pineapple, cheese and tomato sauce obnoxious, while others love the sweet taste of pineapple combined with the other hearty toppings. One thing is certain: Pizza Hawaii has become a cult favorite.
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But it was invented neither in Italy nor in Hawaii, nor even in another US state. The Pizza Hawaii was the invention of Sam Panopoulos. We are talking about a Greek who lived in Canada and ran several restaurants there. One of them should go down in history. It is the Satellite in Chatham, a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, now called Chatham-Kent.
First stop on the way to Pizza Hawaii was Naples
Panopoulos’ trip to Canada played an important role on the road to Pizza Hawaii. The Greek emigrated to North America in the 1950s, using the sea route. Along the way, his ship also stopped in Naples, Italy, where pizza was once invented. Panopoulos was thrilled and came to know and love pizza in the city of its birth.
After first working in mines in Canada, the Greek later began experimenting with Italian food himself. How to bake a pizza in the traditional way or what was typically served on it, he did not know.
But it didn’t matter much at all. Because in Canada, pizza was nowhere near as well known as it is today. “The pizza that was available in Canada back then was primitive,” Panopoulos told the online portal “Atlas Abscura” in an interview. Back then, he said, the only focus was on a topping. Customers could choose between bacon, mushrooms and pepperoni. But that wasn’t enough for the Greek. He experimented and developed a pizza that had ham and pineapple on it. In 1962, the Pizza Hawaii was born.
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Name should give exotic touch
The timing was perfect. At the time, there was a real tiki trend that brought Polynesian culture to North America. So the name was merely intended to give the pizza an exotic touch, but it had nothing to do with Hawaiian cuisine. However, the concept of combining ham and pineapple was not entirely new at the time. In 1955, seven years earlier, the German TV chef Clemens Wilmenrod is said to have invented Toast Hawaii.
Also interesting: Here pizza is baked on an active volcano
The controversy over Pizza Hawaii, and whether or not you could really eat it, has even become political in recent years. For example, in 2017, Iceland’s President Guðni Jóhannesson told children that he would like to ban pineapple on pizza. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau then defended Hawaii pizza as a Canadian invention. Jóhannesson eventually backed down, saying he did not have the power, “Pass laws prohibiting people from putting pineapple on their pizza.“
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