Hawaiian Pizza Defined: Extra Than Simply Pineapple

“Do you want Hawaiian pizza?”

I used to be at a well-known Waikiki Seashore restaurant on task lately, Duke’s Waikiki, and the query would later ship me into an existential tailspin. It was a easy and harmless yes-or-no query requested by a baby on trip with their dad and mom. Sitting on the bar of my neighborhood pub days later, an outdated hang-out that grew to become an excellent pizza joint a few years in the past, that straightforward query gnawed at me. What is “Hawaiian pizza?”

Wikipedia would have me consider that it was first created by a Greek-born Canadian in Ontario in 1962 when he paired pineapple and ham on a putatively conventional tomato sauce-based baked flatbread preparation, on a pizza. “Hawaiian” was printed on the pineapple packaging the culinarily adventurous Greek-Canadian chef used, therefore the identify. What?

Additional down that rabbit gap, I found the same German creation from 1955 and a 1960 Rocky and Bullwinkle episode that featured “pineapple pizza”. Watching that episode was probably the one qualitative good that got here from my tortured ruminations on the sincere query of a kid.

Hawaiian pizza – the controversy

Purists would possibly argue that when you place pineapple on it, it stops being a pizza. Truthful sufficient. I’m not a purist. I discover that dialogue about as helpful as making an attempt to find out if a sizzling canine is, in truth, a sandwich. Who cares? Name it what you need. I as soon as had a drummer who had a pet iguana named “Pizza”. It was an ornery, scaly menace.

You may put conventional Hawaii elements like kalua pig on a pizza, however does that make it “Hawaiian pizza?” Splitting that hair offers me a splitting headache. Pizza cooks are by nature inclined to experiment with elements. I’ve loved a scrumptious kalua pig pizza, and lots of others with char siu, barbeque rooster, corned beef, and different decidedly nontraditional pizza toppings. Slapping something not inherently Native Hawaiian with the “Hawaiian” label is dishonest at finest and cynical cultural appropriation at worst. Pizza has by no means been a product solely of the Hawaiian Islands.

“’ So-called ‘Hawaiian pizza’ is only a assemble, man!” I howl into the void. Eat what you need. Purchase native.

Hawaii pizza tradition

It occurred to me over a slice of excellent outdated pepperoni and cheese at my native that indie pizza tradition is prospering in Hawaii. I suppose that’s one other qualitative good that got here from pondering the notion of “Hawaiian pizza”. It makes me marginally extra optimistic, and I’ll take it.

There are three native, non-chain pizza joints inside strolling distance from the HAT Weblog House Workplace. They’re all legit pizza joints whose pies stack up with any we’ve had wherever throughout the US. There are many more throughout Oahu and its neighboring islands. There is no such thing as a gimmick to them, and, frankly, I’d be stunned to see pineapple on any of their menus. One pizza chef I do know gained’t permit pineapple into his restaurant. Not even for Mai Tais. (One other refuses to supply ranch dressing. Pizza cooks are a peculiar lot.)

So, is “Hawaiian pizza” an actual factor? Yep. It has been for a very long time. Is it really Hawaiian? Not by a protracted shot. Consensus holds that pineapples arrived in Hawaii in 1770 from South America. Henry Dole turned them right into a money crop in 1899. Case closed.

Put no matter you need in your pizza. Name it no matter you need, however be sincere. Pineapple? Have at it. Pizza and pineapple share a standard attribute: nevertheless you slice it (or identify it), it’s what it’s.

Contact our consultants at Hawaii Aloha Journey for the within observe on Hawaii’s finest indie pizza joints to get a really feel and style of Hawaii’s distinctive pizza tradition.