Pineapple Pizza is an abomination in the Eyes of The Lord.
Photo by Janine from Mililani, Hawaii via Wikimedia Commons
It is my understanding that someone here will be writing in favor of mixing pineapple with pizza. Let me assure you, this person is WRONG. So unequivocally wrong. Pineapple on pizza isn’t just wrong, it’s an Abomination in The Eyes of The Lord. It says so in the Bible. Right there in Two Corinthians. Seriously, you can look it up.
OK, so maybe it’s NOT in the Bible. But the only reason God didn’t include that tidbit in Leviticus is that there were no pineapples in the promised land, and He assumed that when we discovered them we would have the good sense He gave us not to adulterate them with pizza.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-pineapple. Quite the contrary, I love it! It is one of God’s perfect foods. It doesn’t need cooking or seasoning. It’s one of those rare foods that does not get better by slathering cheese on it. It is beautiful just the way God made it, and if I encounter it on a breakfast buffet after someone else has gone to all the trouble to peel, core and slice it for me, I could probably consume my body’s weight worth of it. Even canning it doesn’t screw it up!
What does ruin a good pineapple is contamination by pork product. As a child of the 70’s, this was one of the monstrosities pushed by moms under the influence of ladies magazines. My own mother loved to serve canned ham topped with canned pineapple and brown sugar. I went to bed hungry a lot as a child. So, instead of cold, crisp pineapple you had warm, limp pineapple that tasted like pig ass. Pineapple and pig do not mix well. In fact, pineapple doesn’t mix well with most foods, even other fruits. My mother was also exasperated by my refusal to eat ambrosia. “You like everything in it! You like pineapple, and coconut, and oranges and marshmallows!” “But I don’t like it WHEN THEIR JUICES GET ALL MIXED UP TOGETHER!” I would whine. Call me a fruit supremacist, but pineapple needs to stay with its own kind and not mingle with other foods.
And yet for some unknown reason this Greek immigrant decided in the 60s that putting it on pizza (along with the aforementioned pig butt) was a good idea. And mankind has been arguing about it ever since. Pineapple on pizza is one of those great issues that few people are undecided about and most people will fight you to the death over. I’m embarrassed to say that even some of my closest friends think pineapple is an acceptable pizza topping. But then again, I also have friends that root for the Patriots, so I have learned to be tolerant.
The Babylon Bee regularly publishes an article alleging that “Hell introduces 13 new varieties of pineapple pizza.”
HELL—The demonic forces of Satan proudly announced Thursday the debut of 13 new varieties of pineapple pizza, designed to torture millions of humans deceived into consuming the hellish abominations.
The exciting new spins on pineapple pizza were forged in the fires of the hottest portions of hell, and are designed to cause the greatest pain and suffering on earth as possible.
“We expect the new Krazy Pineapple Kale pizza to be especially nefarious,” one high-ranking demonic official said in a board meeting unveiling the new assault on all things good and holy. “The pizzas shall masquerade as good and wholesome food, but in reality they shall be agents of His Darkness Lucifer. Hail Satan! Hail Satan!”
Other varieties the armies of Satan are preparing to foister upon unsuspecting humans worldwide include Deluxe Lutefisk Pineapple, Tropical Tuna Pineapple, and Pineapple Marshmallow Delight.
Hell’s distribution center reportedly began shipping Satan’s pizzas to select test markets this week.
And we all know that the Babylon Bee is a totally reliable journalistic source!
So if you love Jesus and America (and your taste buds) you will avoid this foul concoction at all costs.
In Hell, pineapple pizza or bowl of cold peas with a fork…everyday. At least Satan gives you a choice right????Report
What a choice!Report
I thought this was about pineapple.
Then I realized it was about the Joker movie.Report
Look, pineapple is actually good on pizza. Do you know what doesn’t go on pizza? Sweetcorn. Yet every vegetarian pizza in the UK comes with it.Report
Corn is fine on pizza IMO. I like it best with some meat though – chicken or tuna are good accompaniments.
Pineapple is also just fine on pizza. Not my favourite (if I’m ordering, most places have combinations I’ll get instead) but far from my least favourite (if there are several options at a buffet and one is ham pineapple, I’ll take a slice of that and not bother with some others)
Unless we’re talking about the really thin crust pizza that gets like 90 seconds in a wood heated oven. Somehow pineapple seems all wrong for one of those.Report
I’m going to have to go all Ron Swanson on you all. There are but two meats that belong on pizza: pepperoni or Italian sausage.
GTFO with this ham/chicken/tuna B.S.
And, in response to the OP. Warm pineapple is just as good, if not better, than cold pineapple.Report
Isn’t pizza al tonno e cipolla a fairly traditional Italian combo?
But really even if I’m mistaken I’m ok with being a pizza heretic – there’s a place we go to sometimes that has a duck confit, fig, and goat cheese pizza that is too die for. Also one with barbecue bison and I forget what all else.Report
Maybe its a cultural thing. I don’t mind corn on the cob or corn fritters. But something rubs me wrong about having it on pizza. It doesn’t necessarily ruin the pizza, but it seems like a pointless topping. And makes a pizza moderately worse. A decent pizza becomes barely edible. A barely edible pizza becomes inedible with sweetcorn added. i.e. sweetcorn is not so horrible as to ruin a pizza, but makes it one grade lower.Report
I’m not sure I’ve had really thin crust pizza. And if I had, it was probably not with pineapple.Report
I love pineapple on pizza. Ham is gross, as that is no way to eat pork (seriously, sugar-cured is just nasty. Salt cured or GTFO.) So, you have to have it with pepperoni.
But you know what is even better? Jalapeno and anchovies. Now thats amore!Report
I’ll just note that there were no tomatoes in the Promised Land either, since at the time Joshua et al. were active, tomatoes were only known to Andean farmers.
I’ve also read that the first “pizza” (actually flatbread with oil and herbs and *MAYBE* cheese) was mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid, so if you take the “publication date” of that work (ca. 19 BC) as “first pizza date,” pizza would not have existed in immediately post-Mosaic times.
Hair-splitting, maybe, I don’t know.Report
The line attributed to Dom Pérignon after (apparently allegedly) discovering champagne was “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”.
From what I understand, the guy who invented pizza, upon biting into it, invented the word “Dude”.Report
“Dudus!”
or perhaps, in inscriptions: DVDVSReport
First, a quibble (and I *think* I’m right): The ham butt, despite its name, comes from the front of the pig and not from the a**.
Second, amen to your post. It was more of a defense of pineapple against pizza (and ham, etc.) rather than (as I interpreted the title) a defense of pizza from pineapple. (I’m more interested in defending food from pineapple than vice versa, but I do like pineapple by itself.) But still, amen! I grew up in the same culture of, “let’s take a perfectly good food and add pineapple to it,” I know what it’s like.
Another reason to hate pineapple on pizza: even if you take the pineapple off, the pizza still tastes like pineapple. Most other toppings (speaking for myself), you can take off without too much of a legacy taste.Report
My brother and I, at ages approximately 5 and 10, would respectfully disagree with you from that time the pizza place screwed up and put peppers and onions on “our half” of the pizza and our parents were all “just pick them off”
I wound up tearfully eating a peanut-butter sandwich instead; don’t remember what my brother did.Report
But I like onions and peppers! (Not enough to ask for them on a pizza, but enough not to mind the residual taste after I take them off the pizza.)Report
I’ll just note that the US and Japan call it a pineapple (Pineappuru), while most other languages call it “ananas”. Whether Polish, Russian, German, Basque, Hindi, Dutch, Nepali, French, or almost any language outside SE Asia, that one word has you covered for all your crazy pizza needs.
ETA: Spanish is an exception to the rule.Report
ETA: Spanish is an exception to the rule
Both piña and ananás are correct in Spanish. It’s a regional distinction, like pop and soda.
On a more serious matter, pineapple in pizza is gross. So gross.Report
PIG
ASS
I mean, they sell “smoked butt” right there in the damn store, it makes sense!Report
At one point in time, out of curiosity or a need to confront fears, I’m not sure which, I tried something called chocolate cheese. It was the result of a local cheesemaker trying to use up scraps of cheddar. I was expecting one of two things: either it would be, as the novelty-averse bloc of my mind was screaming at the time, completely foul-tasting, or, as had been the case with using balsamic vinegar as an ice cream topping, it would be something uniquely good that I could enjoy in defiance of culinary convention and all good reason. Instead, what I got just seemed like someone had made fudge wrong. It wasn’t bad; it would have been good if it had been slightly softer and slightly sweeter, but it wasn’t, so it wasn’t good either.
That’s kind of where I come down on pineapple pizza, too. It’s not repulsively gross, but it’s just not as good as pizza without pineapple. I think it’s the water content more than the taste, really. Regardless of its flavor, pineapple’s too wet to work as a pizza topping.
Now, cherries are something I could see working. I know they work on burgers.Report
Good post!
I kinda live by the old adage that any pizza is good pizza. Picked that up in ’82 when I had to stare down a can of Hominy for three days.
I still eat hominy, but it has a bitter taste of defeat each time. I guess that would be my topping of least preference.
Again, good work.Report