-Essay-
PARIS — My love for — and opinions about — food are so strong that I tend to always mention it when I first introduce myself to someone new. Yes, I'm Italian. And yes, my mamma's parmigiana is better than yours.
But I'm also an Italian who has been fortunate enough to see — and taste — other parts of the world. I lived briefly in China and ate dinners of frog legs and soup made of fish innards. In Armenia I tried a seasoned and air-dried beef accompanied with mint yogurt that was left to curdle for days to become down-right slimy. Less exotic but no less intense were the meals when I was a student in Strasbourg, France, where I ate some of the rankest dishes you could imagine simply because that's student life in inflationary times.
Bringing tales of these eating adventures back to my native Cremona, in northern Italy, evoked plenty of questions and commentary (and grimaces) from my family back at home. And yet the only time I actually managed to shock them was during a family dinner a few months ago when I quietly stated the following words: I don't mind pineapple on pizza.
I don't know which was worse, the icy silence that came right after my confession, or the onslaught of abuse that soon followed — and has yet to cease. Apparently the Italian Constitution's freedom of speech that my parents raised me to cherish has its exemptions.
But as 2024 begins, I suddenly have a bit of support on this life-or-death matter: Gino Sorbillo, the famous Neapolitan pizza maker, made it clear through an Instagram post that pineapple pizza is, well, kosher for us Italians.
I am not afraid to admit my flaws
The world is incredibly vast and beautifully diverse and every culture has its own rules rooted in ancient times. Since the world itself is also a sphere rotating in an infinite universe, I am happy to state that traditions are a really cool thing — and can change with time too.
But before we get to deep in the philosophical wood-burning, let's get our hands in the dough, and break down the recipe.
For starters, fruit on pizza already existed before Sam Panopoulos tried pineapple on it, in 1962. Born in Greece, he moved to Canada where he placed the tropical fruit on pizza to attract customers to one of his Ontario-based restaurants.
The roots of the pizza recipe have long been explored in Italy. Some note that pizza's origins can be traced way (way) back, after archaeologists on the island of Sardinia found evidence of leavened bread being baked around 7,000 years ago, with drawings from more recent millennia of a sort of bread with various toppings.
The modern incarnation is often sourced to baker Raffaele Esposito in the southern city of Naples, who prepared the tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil leaves recipe for the royal visit of Queen Margherita in 1889, from which the name Pizza Margherita is derived.
The mix of sweet and savory is no news at all to the Italian palate
But of course pizza has evolved and expanded, with a wide of toppings, both meats and vegetables, and even the rich Capriciosa (capricious) that piles them all on for those who can't decide. Still, other more recent ingredients have already upset millions of Italians, including french fries or salmon, and the most recent I've seen: Raman pizza!?
Still, it is pineapple that seems to have enraged my fellow paesani in Italy. On first glance, it might seem as though it is the sweetness of the fruit that is the problem with the recipe. But there are plenty of sweet-and-salty recipes throughout the Italian culinary canon. There is pizza with figs, pears and taleggio make the best risotto and there's prosciutto and cantelope that I eat every summer, alongside a delicious orange and fennel salad.
No, the mix of sweet and savory is no news at all to our palate — so why are we so sour about pineapple on pizza? What do my fellow Italians have against the good people of Hawaii?
Pineapple as a statement
The answer lies not so deep into the internet. Memes and videos of Italians trying the Hawaiian pizza are everywhere and every single one of them reproduces the same sequence of expressions – disbelief, disgust, betrayal. Fa schifo! But is it really that bad?
I believe all the theatrics start with the fact that pineapple on pizza is associated with American foodfood, which has a long list of crimes and misdemeanors. Dishes like Fettuccine Alfredo, Bolognese pasta and Carbonara sauce with mushrooms and sour cream. All certified crimes against humanity, according to that same Italian Constitution.
Hawaiian pizza is a statement on whether you are tied to conservative traditions
But pineapple is somehow seen as even worse thanks to all the internet hysteria. That’s why Gino Sorbillo’s instagram post introducing pineapple pizza to the menu had the reaction everyone in his marketing team was planning for: an intense debate about traditions being violated. Because the Hawaiian pizza is about is a statement on whether you are tied to conservative traditions or have a far more flexible mind.
As the most famous Neapolitan pizza maker of this decade, Sorbillo knew exactly what he was doing. “Guys, don’t go wild. I am bound to traditions but I also want to try it, because I have added it to the menu. Don’t get mad,” he says in his video before putting a slice of his newest creation into his mouth and immediately after asking for a second round of it.
I'll let you all the joy of checking on the comment section because it’s way funnier than it should be, with all sorts of “you lost all my respect” and “I thought you were better than this” angry texts.
A pizza is a pizza is a pizza
This is all striking Italians where we are most fragile: our pride. To make adjustment means to somehow cede the original version of the dish to others. It’s the same reason why I cringe at overcooked pasta with meatballs being called “bolognese”, when it is not made of ragù, that is an entirely different thing.
This leads me back to where I started: pineapple on pizza upsets the average Italian because it's the image of the pizza that’s being betrayed. Because with its colors, its history and culture, pizza is the symbol of Italy, the one food able to bring together North and South, leveling out the differences. It's a simple recipe that reflects the beauty of Italy, where a dish that started out poor has become the flag of a nation, exported across the globe.
As Gertrude Stein wrote in 1913, A rose, is a rose, is a rose, a poem about the importance of a name and all the meanings linked to it. A pizza, is a pizza, is a pizza then, the container of an entire culture, therefore the identity of a nation. Modifying the original is the equivalent of telling Italians that their authentic cuisine needs to be changed. May God save us all if the traditional Christmas fish meal ever includes a tray of sushi!
Setting limits
In my travels, I have found out that our cuisine is not the only one to have been imported — and distorted. The dishes cooked in Indian and Chinese restaurants in my native Italy does not taste the same as they do in India and China. It’s because of the ingredients, you could reply, but that's just half of the reason. The other half is more about the fact that we wouldn’t stand the spiciness or the actual taste of it if it wasn’t Westernized.
It's not the pineapple, it’s the tomato sauce.
To conclude, let's return to the topic at hand. There are indeed some real problems with many of the pineapple pizzas out there — and it's not the pineapple, it’s the tomato sauce. Those two flavors don’t belong together. Ever. Indeed, Sorbillo's stamp of approval for pineapple was on what we call pizza bianca (white pizza), without the tomato sauce.
But there is another issue that disturbs the Italian mind and soul deeply: when we see people using canned pineapple on our precious food of gods, which makes it way too sweet — and soggy.
Soggy pizza, good people of the world, is nothing short of a human tragedy. A catastrophe. Non va bene — and not up for debate.