Hawaiian pizza

**Hawaiian pizza**, also known as **pineapple pizza**, is a pizza topped with tomato sauce, cheese, pineapple, and either ham or bacon.

# History

A Hawaiian Pizza with toppings including pineapple was served at Francine's Pizza Jungle in Portland, Oregon in early 1957.   Sam Panopoulos claimed that he created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada in 1962. Inspired in part by his experience preparing Chinese dishes which commonly mix sweet and savoury flavours, Panopoulos experimented with adding pineapple, ham, bacon and other toppings. These additions were not initially very popular. The addition of pineapple to the traditional mix of tomato sauce and cheese, sometimes with ham or sometimes with bacon, soon became popular locally and eventually became a staple offering of pizzerias around the world. In regards to the naming of the dish, Panopoulos chose *Hawaiian* after the brand of canned pineapple they used.

In Germany, Hawaiian pizza is thought to be a variation of the ham, pineapple and cheese-topped Toast Hawaii, originally introduced by Germany's first TV cook Clemens Wilmenrod in 1955.

# In popular media

In 2014, *Time* listed Hawaiian pizza first on its list of "The 13 Most Influential Pizzas of All Time".

In 2017, Icelandic president Guðni Th. Jóhannesson reportedly told a group of high school students during a Q&A that he was fundamentally opposed to the idea of putting pineapple on pizza. He added that he would ban pineapple as a pizza topping if he could, as long as he received 30% of the under 21 vote. His off-the-cuff remark generated a flurry of media coverage and inspired those who liked and disliked Hawaiian pizza to express their opinions on social media. Celebrities shared their preferences on the matter, including Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who expressed support for Hawaiian pizza by tweeting: “I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation." Panopoulos, at that point retired from the restaurant business, was called upon by some media outlets to defend his creation. Guðni later clarified that he did not have the power to ban particular toppings on pizza and would not like to live in a country where the leader could ban anything he or she did not like.

American author John Green reflected on the dish's cosmopolitan origins and reach, noting its Canadian invention by a Greek immigrant, inspired by Chinese cuisine to put a South American fruit on an Italian dish, which has gained its greatest popularity in Australia.

# Surveys

Hawaiian was the most popular pizza in Australia in 1999, accounting for 15% of pizza sales.

A 2015 review of independent UK takeaways operating through Just Eat found the Hawaiian pizza to be the most commonly available.

A 2016 Harris Poll survey of US adults had pineapple in the top three least favorite pizza toppings, ahead of anchovies and mushrooms.

According to a 2019 YouGov Omnibus survey, 12% of Americans who eat pizza say that pineapple is one of their top three favorite pizza toppings, and 24% say that pineapple is one of their least favorite toppings. It was not the most disliked topping however, as ingredients were even more widely unpopular in the survey: anchovies and eggplant.

# See also

* List of pizza varieties by country
* List of Canadian inventions and discoveries
* Canadian cuisine
* Food portal