Posted on 08/27/2024 11:31:56 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Some love it and others hate it. But very few people know that the man who made the brave decision back in the 1960s to add pineapple to pizza was a Greek immigrant in Canada.
The man responsible for this gastronomic innovation was none other than Sotirios “Sam” Panopoulos. He arrived in Canada by boat in 1954 with little more than a passion for his departed Greek homeland and a belief that boundless opportunity awaited in his adopted country.
By the early 1960s, the man born in August 1934 in the village of Vourvoura in the Peloponnese had built a small chain of restaurants in Ontario with his two brothers. Offering burgers and then pizza, which was becoming increasingly popular at the time, the brothers saw their businesses becoming all the more successful with each passing year.
The Greek creation of the famous Hawaiian pizza The Hawaiian pizza was the result of a spontaneous experiment. Out of curiosity, one day, Panopoulos decided to add canned pineapple to a pizza merely to find out what the result would be. “We just put it on, just for the fun of it [to] see how it was going to taste,” Sam Panopoulos told the BBC in a 2017 interview he gave shortly before he passed away.
He and his brothers liked the contrast between the sweetness of the pineapple and the savory flavor of the ham. “We tried it first, [then] passed it to some customers. And a couple of months later, [they went] crazy [for] it, so we put it on the menu,” Panopoulos recounted.
Grecian Delight supports Greece Hawaiian Pizza Hawaiian Pizza. Credit: skibler/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 They dubbed the pizza “the Hawaiian” after the brand of canned pineapple they used. At the time, pizza toppings were usually limited to mushrooms, bacon, and pepperoni, Panopoulos recalled.
A great legacy The controversial foodstuff made an appearance on the international stage in February 2017, when Iceland’s President Guðni Jóhannesson declared that pineapple should be banned from pizza. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted in return: “I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation.”
Panopoulos sold his restaurant, called Satellite, in the mid-1970s, later opening Family Circle, another restaurant, in London, Ontario. He finally retired at the age of seventy-three in 2007. When not defending pineapple pizza to the world’s media, he spends his days as a doting grandfather (or ‘pappou’ in Greek).
Sam Panopoulos passed away on June 8, 2017 at the age of eighty-three. It was never his intention to cause such turmoil in the culinary world, nor was he bothered by the never-ending debate about the appropriateness of fruit-topped pizza.
His only intention was to break the pattern of using ordinary ingredients on pizza and to open up a world of new flavors—and that he did while making the very most of the great opportunities afforded him by the country that he and his brothers came to call home in their twenties.
I don’t like it but sell a lot at my little pizza restaurant.
Mozzarella, ham, pineapple, topped with some cheddar.
Another reason to hate Canada..
I have an Arti-Garlic pizza on the menu.
Alfredo sauce base, garlic powder, onion, mushrooms, tomato, artichoke hearts, mozzarella and pepper jack cheeses.
That sounds very good, and very like what I used to get in an eatery on K street in DC. I have never found another place around here that makes the same kind of thing.
I’ve had Hawaiian pizza once, in Stari Grad, on the island of Hvar, in Croatia. Stari Grad (”Old City”) was originally an ancient Greek colony named Pharos. So I guess it was OK to eat a pizza invented by a Greek there.
It’s not bad. The pineapple carmelizes as it bakes so it’s more sweet, like in an upside down cake, than acidic like raw pineapple.
But you need something salty like ham or bacon to contrast with to get the proper effect.
“Ham never really made sense to me. If it was Hawaiian, shouldn’t it have coconut?”
Well Hawaiians do love a good pig roast. And they’re crazy for Spam.
I take Greek pita bread, which is thicker and fluffier than a middle eastern pita, and top it with sliced red onion, sliced kalamata olives, feta, and drizzle it with olive oil and lots of oregano and a touch of salt. Broil till the edges are crispy.
I actually copied this from a square slice that I had once that also had spinach. It doesn’t need tomato sauce.
Evil, evil, evil man!!!!
We just had Marco’s Hawaiian Chicken pizza Sunday. Beside ham and pineapple, there were chicken and bacon. People liked it.
I am relieved no Italian (or Italian-American) was involved.
“Big kahuna pizza? That’s that Hawaiian pizza joint isn’t it?’
How about Big Sausage Pizza?
Somehow it figures that a Greek sticks fruit where it don’t belong. Bet they are really happy about adding spam to it...
Leave pizza alone! Put it on a pita!
Keep your sausage out of my pizza.
“Wh-What?”
“Say what one more time. I dare you.”
I kid you not. Makes Pineapple ham pizza sound darn good in comparison.
My favorite!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.