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.
This is something I’ve never had but been curious about...it seems so odd...
what perverted things one does to pizza in the privacy of one’s home is one’s own business
But when one starts selling pizza with pineapple, corn, russian dressing, etc... that’s when citizens, and the authorities, need to put an immediate stop to the madness.
The best pizza I’ve had was a ‘white’ vegetarian pizza topped with artichokes
I personally like it, but only with added jalapenos.
I’ve eaten a few in my day. They’re OK. I draw the line at broccoli, though.
I like pineapple a lot and I love pizza. The combination tastes great to me.
I think pineapple compliments pepperoni very well. Ham not so much, so I don’t order “Hawaiian pizza”. Ham never really made sense to me. If it was Hawaiian, shouldn’t it have coconut? Or would that be a “Pina Colada Pizza”?
lol
Should have just stuck with the Greek pizza with feta and greek calamata olives.
SPAM pizza would be very Hawaiian.
Yes, broccoli doesn’t belong on pizza.
Canadian bacon and pineapple is my favorite pizza.
Ditto
Greek Inventor of Hawaiian Pizza gets a Chile reception. He responds, “Oh? You don’t want Samoa?”
This right after the post about Sweden and putting bananas and curry on a pizza?
Few in Hawaii eat the pineapple and ham thing.
Translation: The Guidos whacked him when they found out who he was.
One of the customers decides to leave the restaurant:
“Ph*ket, Man, it’s time to Rome.
I’m Hungary for some Turkey anyway!
Broccoli, red bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, feta, garlic, olives and what-not,
and you have the makings of a very good vegetable pizza!
THEN you are heading in a proper, sane direction.
But MIXING broccoli and pineapple just ain’t correct, in my opinion.
How I found out is a long story, but pineapple on a Polish sausage dog is also a good mix of sweet and savory. Ordinarily, onion and mustard suffice.
“Broccoli on a vegetable pizza is OK…”
Spam and canned pineapple pizza should be a thing already...
(And probably would be, in a Commie-La Depression.)
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.