j.w
I Love my Goldies
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Ham is ok and mushrooms great but not that darn sweet pine apple, nope and no way!
Who's big idea was it to put that sweet fruit on a pizza?
Sam Panopoulos of Chatham, ON in 1962
There aren’t many people that are indifferent to pineapple as a pizza topping. You probably either love it or hate it.
It’s not really an obvious topping choice. Nearly all other standard toppings are either a meat or a vegetable. Pineapple is a fruit. You wouldn’t put cherries on a pizza would you? Watermelon? No. So why pineapple?
The first step in getting a sense of that the first person was thinking, we’d have to figure out who that person is. A simple Google search leads us quickly to the answer. The inventor of the pineapple pizza was none other than Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos.
In 1962 Sam operated a restaurant in Chatham Ontario (a little west of Toronto) with his two brothers and came up with the idea to put canned pineapple and ham on a pizza and call it “hawaiian pizza”.
Sam Panopoulos passed away in June of 2017.
Sam died of Pineapple Pizza poisoning by the way! (Just kidding from j.w, lol!)
Who's big idea was it to put that sweet fruit on a pizza?
Sam Panopoulos of Chatham, ON in 1962
There aren’t many people that are indifferent to pineapple as a pizza topping. You probably either love it or hate it.
It’s not really an obvious topping choice. Nearly all other standard toppings are either a meat or a vegetable. Pineapple is a fruit. You wouldn’t put cherries on a pizza would you? Watermelon? No. So why pineapple?
The first step in getting a sense of that the first person was thinking, we’d have to figure out who that person is. A simple Google search leads us quickly to the answer. The inventor of the pineapple pizza was none other than Greek-Canadian Sam Panopoulos.
In 1962 Sam operated a restaurant in Chatham Ontario (a little west of Toronto) with his two brothers and came up with the idea to put canned pineapple and ham on a pizza and call it “hawaiian pizza”.
Apparently, he had experience with making Chinese dishes which commonly feature a mix of sweet and savoury flavours, and thought it was worth a try.
The residents of Chatham seemingly didn’t have the aversion to pineapple on their pizza that many do today and the idea took off. Hawaiian pizza is now a staple at pizza restaurants throughout Canada.
Sam Panopoulos passed away in June of 2017.
Sam died of Pineapple Pizza poisoning by the way! (Just kidding from j.w, lol!)
