Pineapple on pizza is unAmerican, and unnatural.
There’s no pizza equivalent of the German Beer Purity Act or the Laws of Kosher. Maybe there should be. I live in Korea, where pizza often comes with weird stuff like corn and sweet potato on it; frankly, there probably should be some boundaries. And the only ones I know are, what did the pizzas I grew up with taste like, and how are these new ones different?
I kind of like Hawaiian pizza. California Pizza Kitchen has weird stuff on it like arugula lettuce and carmelized pears; I stick with more conventional toppings. I can’t afford to be a wine snob or a single malt scotch purist, but pizza snobbery is within my price range.
Why the ragging on California? Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada, but it’s really multicultural, as the Wikipedia article mentions:
I like pineapple but offset the sweet with salty anchovies and hot pickle jalapeños. Nobody touches my pie!
Sensory deficit disorder.
People who have insufficiently or excessively complex taste buds often are incapable of experiencing certain pleasurable tastes, due to under/over stimulation of their sensory apparatus.
Same for color blind folks, or tone deaf ones. Most are able to accept their own experience range, some rail against it, some sad individuals attack others and tell them they are wrong and things are not supposed to be that way.
This doesn’t apply to well done steaks of course.
I also prefer pepperoni and sometimes bacon to ham with my pineapple, because the ham is too bland to be a good match for the strong flavor of the pineapple.
With regards to the “it just seems weird” theory, that’s what I feel about BBQ sauce on pizza. But I’m not about to say that it should be outlawed.
And they also fail to recognize flavor combinations as awful as pineapple on pizza that are so bad they degrade the flavor of any other pizza in a 30’ radius.
I’m a big fan of pineapple. Not canned or frozen, which often add sugar…give me fresh. I used to buy a pineapple every week, cut it up, and take it as part of lunches. I stopped a few months ago because lately, they have little taste…maybe they’re out ot season or something.
I’m also a big fan of cheese. I keep mozzarella cheese sticks handy for a snack. I have, on occasion, had a bowl of pineapple and then switched to a bite of the cheese. It clashes. I don’t know the science behind it…maybe it would be easier for the reader to imagine eating some luxurious smooth, rich, sweet chocolate and then quickly switching to anchovies with garlic.
All that said, I like pineapple on pizza. I’m guessing it’s a proportions thing. I get a little cheese with pineapple but also crust, sauce, other toppings (Canadian bacon), spices, and it’s all good.
Let’s talk about BBQ sauce. I’m going to have to disqualify the pie that has it…that’s not pizza. However, it’s not a big deal: just call it a flatbread. Taco pizza? Wrong spices. But if you enjoy eating it, and if pizza makers put it on their menu, don’t get stuck on the label.
A local places makes a pie with alfredo sauce, cheese, and grilled chicken. Just Typing those words makes my mouth water: it’s killer. Chicken on pizza? A rose by any other name…
It was the only topping that made a 90s-era Dominos pizza edible to me. Pineapple and Canadian bacon (or was it ham? For some reason, I remember Canadian bacons, but, same concept either way.)
It’s not something I eat regularly or order – that’s my wife who orders pineapple on the pizza – but it’s something I’ll gladly eat. I like the combo of sweet and salty, whether it’s something like the glaze on Korean chicken wings, mixing caramel and cheese popcorn together (I don’t eat popcorn very much, but give me a bowl of this and I’m chowing down!), peanut butter & jelly, or pineapple and ham pizza.
Now BBQ pizza? Yuck. I haven’t tasted one that I liked.
I’ve long been of the opinion that the temperature of the pizza is a major factor in whether or not it tastes good with pineapple. I’ve had it both straight from the oven, and after it’s been sitting a while to cool off a bit. The later is vile, while the former is actually pretty good.
Given that pizza is almost always delivered to your house, I suspect by the time it arrives, any pineapple pizza has cooled below the critical threshold for most people, and so they hate it. And this is a self reinforcing phenomenon. Even if we were to order a pineapple pizza in a restaurant, so it comes to the table fresh from the oven, the time it takes to convince a hater to even try a bite lets the pizza cool enough to cross the threshold, and when they finally cave in and try a bite, all of their opinions are reinforced, because now it tastes awful.
Aha!! We just knew that behind that polite, apologetic, multilingual, peacekeeping façade there lurked some dark shame!
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Back on point, I say meh, it’s like people who put raisins in savory hot dishes, I wonder what the thinking process was but to each his own. I
Pineapples (and anchovies) on pizza are simply a meme that’s fun to hate. Or rather the meme is that it’s fun to hate pineapple or anchovies on pizza. So people revel in spreading the hate, all while grinning about the fun they’re having spreading that hate. Humans be dumb about stuff.
Many people love sweet+savory. Some bacon is cured in so much sugar sauce you could wring it out over pancakes.
Some people don’t like sweet + savory at all.
Not much more to see here.
I mean taste is subjective, but I’m 100©% confident this statement would hold up to a blind taste test.
I can get the exact same pizza New Yorkers get right here in Dallas TX. At a number of places.
I’m not sure that’s true. New York City’s water differs from Dallas’s to a noticeable degree, and some of the local foods (notably pizza, bread and bagels) taste better for it. Also, New York gets first crack at virtually all food ingredients. It probably doesn’t make much difference with some ingredients, but it makes a great deal of difference with meats and cheeses, and probably tomatoes, onions and garlic. If a chef at any level of the restaurant industry is working in Dallas, it’s because he washed out in New York or Los Angeles. As one chef explained to me, the best Italian chefs in the world, the best French chefs, the best delicatessen sandwich artists in the world gravitate to New York.
And make delivery pizza?
This is, of course, 100% silliness.
Exactly. It mean he washed out everywhere else in the world, not just NY and LA.
I like pineapple on pizza, but I can understand people who don’t because I hate applesauce with pork (and yet some people love it).
I don’t like the combination of pizza sauce and pineapple. Its too acidic I think. My husband loves pineapple on pizza, I consider it an abomination, yet we’ve stayed married 25 years (we usually get 2 pizzas - our 22 year old isn’t picky when eating leftover pizza).
The same New Yorkers who are appalled by what a Californian likes on his pizza have preferences that would appall the average Neapolitan.
Such as?
I proudly proclaim my love for both BBQ chicken pizza and pizza with pineapple.
Fie on the naysayers. Fie, I say!