"Gretchen Beck" > wrote in message
]...
>>> There are two versions that I recall....the first with ham, green pepper
>>> and canned pineapple chunks atop tomator sauce, the second and likely
>>> "authentic" Hawaian, Span cubes and pineapple chunks over tomato sauce.
>>>
>>> The mere thought is enough to generate the first tickle of incipient
>>> projectile vomiting.
>
> Ok, the name is tacky, and the idea is kind of wierd, but if you think
> about it -- ham, pineapple, tomato -- the flavors go together really well.
> Personally, I prefer pepperoni to ham (or spam -- which I'll agree, yuck)
> on this combo. Call it a hot flatbread sandwich if that makes it more
> palatable, but don't diss it just because it's called "pizza".
>

To those of us who came of eating age in the 40s and early 50s, ham and
pineapple were a combination beloved in middle class kitchens, yet
unjustified for any other reason than as a garnish/glaze to cut what was
once the salty mustiness of the "country" hams of past decades, then
replaced by what we have today, those water-filled excuses for ham that
share only the color of the "real thing".

We were fed on the Trader Vic's Polynesian(Ha!)American version of sweet and
sour pork, mostly pineapple and green Bell peppers in a viscous corn starch
slurry, and then introduced to Hawaiian Pizza in which two ingredients which
had a traditional culinary relationship were introduced to another, canned
tomato sauce, for which neither bore any affinity. Just as with those Tuna
Casseroles, "big" canned peas, useful only to make a quick version of pea
soup with the right tarting up, and salads with marshmallows, Hawaiian Pizza
was a manifestation of the USA's grandest era, a time in which life was so
good that culture was unnecessary and took a drastic nosedive from its
already modest culinary mediocrity. Would you put tomato sauce on pineapple
upside down cake? On baked ham? I never realized until later that almost
every dish was "sweetened", and that many natural flavors were completely
obscured by vast quantities of salt and sugar. These days, we're offered
"Hawaiian Macadamia Bread", about as Hawaiian (except for what seems to be a
native Hawaiian psychological craving for sugar) as "Indian Fry Bread" has
any real connection with Native American cuisine.

Folks in the US and the UK did not eat fresh tuna, and I recall the first
time I ever did, 1955 or so, my own catch from off Galveston, large chunks
quickly seared on a cast iron griddle, served with butter and lemon, while
bystanders laughed at the eating of "trash fish".

......and having spent considerable time in Italy, many months over a period
in the early 60s and on occasions since, I'm convinced that the best pizza
may come from three of NYC's boroughs (and that the real "secret" to pizza
has to do with the oven, preferably floored in stone or firebrick with any
temperature less than about 700F unlikely to produce the quick melding of
flavors or the flash-superheating of the crust required to develop the blend
of crisp exterior and a thin chewy interior.

One of my favorite Italian dishes.... Little triglie (red mullet) lightly
grilled and oiled, then grilled over an open fire of dried grapevine, served
with lemon and oil on crusty local bread, preferably on the waterfront in
Livorno.

TMO