When I began thinking about this column, I hoped to take a deep, scholarly dive into the realm of the Hawaiian pizza, the abomination/delicacy (delete as applicable) that, according to recent research by YouGov, now divides the nation more than any other foodstuff.
But in the end, this proved to be impossible. No book I own has any advice at all on the matter of whether pineapple can ever make an acceptable topping for pizza; nor have I been able to locate a definitive history of this controversial dish, said to have been invented by a Greek Canadian called Sam Panopoulos at his restaurant in Ontario some time in 1962. (He was “inspired”, I gather, by certain sweet and savoury Chinese dishes rather than by a malevolent belief that some people simply do not deserve the good things in life.)
As a result, I cannot, on this occasion, play the neutral referee, for which reason I’m just going to let the bigotry pour out of me, like cheap prosecco into a large measure of Aperol.
Why would you do that? Add chunks of pineapple to a pizza, I mean. I find it hard to think of anything worse – though according to the trade magazine Pizza Today, various radical experiments involving dates, other fruit and “salumi marmalade” are currently underway in the land of the pepperoni. These do indeed sound at least as bad as pineapple, a fruit that pulls off the rare feat of being at once both too tart and too sweet, and which overwhelms whatever happens to be in its path. (This includes, incidentally, some hangovers; as a student, I used sometimes to keep a carton of pineapple juice on the window ledge of my college room expressly for the purpose of seeing off a particularly heinous kind of Guinness-induced headache.)
Pineapple, which contains an enzyme that is used commercially as a meat tenderiser, and which eats away at the hands of cannery workers unless they wear gloves, is no friend of gentle mozzarella or delicate parma ham. It’s not a friend of anything really, unless you’re the director of a new production of Abigail’s Party and have a bunch of cocktail sticks to hand.
It is a fruit that belongs only in 18th-century oil paintings; in pina coladas (kitsch, but undeniably delicious); and on the top – or bottom – of a freshly baked upside-down cake. Put it on a pizza, and you’ve committed a crime against good taste. Plus, said pizza will soon be really soggy.
Some will say all this is snobbery on my part, and perhaps it is, for I have to admit to Matilda’s Miss Trunchbull tendencies when it comes to pizza. The longer the menu, the less happy I am. I like my pizza to be minimalist, the culinary equivalent of a Mondrian, or even a Ben Nicholson; when my friend, C, used to order that old Pizza Express number involving leeks and raisins, I always used to feel slightly funny, as if she’d been caught admiring a Beryl Cook or something (C is a brilliant and celebrated painter).
You want oregano and garlic, the toppings that were stowed on board Neapolitan ships, the better that sailors could make pizza away from home (hence marinara); also, the mozzarella and fresh basil that were added later in honour of the visit of an Italian queen to Naples (margherita).
But while olives, anchovies and cured meat are just about acceptable modern additions, I draw the line at fleshy hunks of tuna, mounds of grassy rocket and slug-like grilled aubergines. Ditto hard-boiled eggs. Chilli is good, but in its invisible form (cayenne), I think, rather than as oil-slicked peppers.
I ate the best pizza of my life not on some Italian street corner, nor even in New York, but in Chelmsford, made for me by a friend’s Calabrian mother. It was pretty fiery, as was she: a woman I can no more picture with a tin of pineapple in her hands than I can a Chanel handbag or a delicate paper fan.
