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The Taste With Vir: To love or not to love pineapple pizza
Why does pineapple pizza divide people so much? Partly because we think pizza is a savoury dish and are horrified by the idea of putting anything sweet on it.
Would you eat a pizza with pineapple on it? It is a question that has often been asked. And almost always, the answer you get is: “Of course not.” Or even: “That sounds disgusting?”
And yet, not everyone is telling the truth. Because pizza with pineapple keeps turning up on menus. So obviously, it is a popular dish that people do order. Sometimes it is even called Hawaiian pizza as though Hawaii is a small Italian town a few miles away from Naples.
Speaking for myself, I would rather go hungry than eat a pineapple-topped pizza. And despite its popularity around the world, it is not a pizza you will find at many pizzerias in Italy. There is a reason for that: Pineapple is not an Italian topping. As far as we can tell, the pineapple pizza was invented by an expatriate Greek in Canada in the 1960s.
As almost no dish invented in Canada even makes it out of Quebec or Ontario, the pineapple pizza may be the most famous Canadian dish of the second half of the 20th century . I am being serious here. Have you ever heard of that great Montreal delicacy: Poutine? Probably not.
Even the maple sauce that we think is Canadian is usually just a sugar syrup invented by American multinationals. It has very little to do with Canada. (You can get real maple syrup from Canada, but it is expensive and thus served much less).
So why does pineapple pizza divide people so much? Well, partly it is because we think of pizza as a savoury dish and are horrified by the idea of putting anything sweet on it. Certainly, that’s how Indians look at it. We say we don’t like sugar in anything except for dessert and believe that sweet pineapple just does not belong on a savoury dish.
In reality, it is not that simple. Though North Indians will diss Gujarati food for being too sweet (it shouldn’t be: If it is well-made it should merge sweet and sour flavours to create a complex taste), they ignore the fact that they often like a sweet and savoury combination themselves. Chaat should be savoury but it relies on sweetish chutneys (made from tamarind, dates etc.) to provide a counterpart to the teekha flavours. No North Indian I have met has ever complained about the sweetness of those chutneys. But the claim that sweet and savoury must not mix will continue to be advanced --- even when the people doing the complaining are settling down to a pulao studded with kishmish.
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Other cuisines are more appreciative of the role that sweetness can play in serving as a contrast to savoury flavours. We think of Thai food as being hot but nearly every Thai curry contains sugar. And at restaurants in Thailand, they won’t put salt and pepper on the table. Instead, they will place chilli powder, nam pla and – you guessed it! – sugar. Thai chefs say that the chilli needs to be balanced out with sweetness. The final dish will work better because of the contrast.
In most western cuisines, many meats are traditionally paired with sweet flavours. The classic sauce for duck is made with oranges. Pork goes with sweet and fruity accompaniments, say prunes or apples. Foie gras needs something sweet to set it off. In Italy, cheese is served with mostarda, a sweetish condiment made from fruit and mustard. In the South of the United States, it is not uncommon to ladle maple syrup over your bacon and eggs. (It’s horrible: Don’t try it.)
Even the Brits like adding sweet flavours to (sort of) spicy dishes. Their version of curry has sultanas. When they serve a gammon (a salt cured hind leg of pork which tastes a lot like ham) they often add a slice of tinned pineapple. (Yeah well, they are Brits). As we all know, the Japanese will use all kinds of sweet sauces with fish and meat, among them yuzu sauce which is made from lemons and oranges. Tempura is usually served with tentsuyu, a sweetish sauce that includes a sugary rice wine called mirin or even, sugar.
Most cuisines, except ours of course, consider the ability to mix sweet and savoury flavours as a measure of culinary sophistication. The Thais even have a sweet chilli sauce which can be really hot. But the heat is backed by a sugary background.
Which brings us back to pineapple pizza. Just as it has nothing to do with Italy, it has nothing to do with Hawaii either though it is routinely described as Hawaiian pizza on menus outside Italy.
It turns out that the guy who invented it named it after the brand name on the can of pineapple he was using. But it is definitively Canadian —- Justin Trudeau has officially claimed it for his nation. (Not that there was much competition for trying to own it, I would imagine).
But I don’t think that matters. Pizza is now so international that new toppings are being invented every day. The Greek-Canadian who invented Hawaiian pizza says he was inspired by his previous experiences of cooking Chinese food where sweet flavours are often matched with savoury. So, I guess that makes it a truly international pizza.
Whether you like Hawaiian pizza or not is entirely up to you. Don’t be put off by the sweetness or the fruit flavours. As we have seen, the whole world (except perhaps us) likes to mix sweet and savoury. You should try it and make up your own mind. Every palate has its own preferences.
(Okay. So, I tried it again while writing this column. It is truly disgusting . But that’s just me!)
