Pizze may be Italian, but pizzas are not. Times have moved on. I
recall, many years ago, walking in Rome and seeing the following sign:

Pizza Americana! Qui! Oggi!

This Pizza Americana was a typical thin-crust Pizza Hut kind of pie.
Whether because of America's chain pizza vendors or because pizza
simply lends itself to innovation, it has become completely
cosmopolitan these days.

And while I cannot answer your question about the Hawaiian pizza, I can
offer this additional bit of signage, observed outside a west-coast US
pizza restaurant:

Help Wanted. Large Hawaiian $6.99.

It didn't seem like they were paying very much for such specific
requirements...

Skep

In my area (Boston) Hawaiian pizza was introduced by the California pizza
kitchen chain.


--
-Mark H. Zanger
author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
Students
www.ethnicook.com
www.historycook.com



> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Pizze may be Italian, but pizzas are not. Times have moved on. I
> recall, many years ago, walking in Rome and seeing the following sign:
>
> Pizza Americana! Qui! Oggi!
>
> This Pizza Americana was a typical thin-crust Pizza Hut kind of pie.
> Whether because of America's chain pizza vendors or because pizza
> simply lends itself to innovation, it has become completely
> cosmopolitan these days.
>
> And while I cannot answer your question about the Hawaiian pizza, I can
> offer this additional bit of signage, observed outside a west-coast US
> pizza restaurant:
>
> Help Wanted. Large Hawaiian $6.99.
>
> It didn't seem like they were paying very much for such specific
> requirements...
>
> Skep
>

"Mark Zanger" wrote...
> In my area (Boston) Hawaiian pizza was introduced by the California pizza
> kitchen chain.
>
>
I recall recipes and seeing "Hawaian Pizza" during a period, late 60s or
so, long predating the California Pizza Kitchens.

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.

TMO

TOliver wrote:

> I recall recipes and seeing "Hawaian Pizza" during a period, late 60s or
> so, long predating the California Pizza Kitchens.
>
> 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.

I first saw "Hawaiian Pizza" with ham and pineapple in the SF Bay Area
during the mid-50's. Before then, most pizza was sold by family owned
Italian-American restaurants. The first one to open in San Francisco
was Lupo's in the 1930's. This place, now called Tommaso's, is still
there on Kearney St. and still sells Neapolitan style pizze cooked in a
wood fired oven. But as pizza became more popular, a couple of chains
arrived in the Bay Area around 1956. There was Me'n'Ed's based in
Portland and Shakey's from Sacramento. I can't remember which one (or
both) had "Hawaiian" but that's when it arrived. They also had picnic
tables, signs on the johns that said things like "Ye Olde Gents Room",
and sometimes (ugh) corny banjo music. But it caught on with families
and softball teams and , as they say, the rest is history. One of our
local parlors caught on is now the Round Table chain.

D.M.

>> 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".

toodles, gretchen

"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

In article .com>,
"> wrote:

> it has become completely
> cosmopolitan these days.

But, sadly, it's still very difficult to get a decent one outside
Italy.

L

--
Remover the rock from the email address

> But, sadly, it's still very difficult to get a decent one outside
> Italy.

Hmm. I suppose it all depends on where you go. I can't say much for the
one I had _in_ Italy.

Learn to make good bread, get a stone for your oven, and the world of
pizza can be yours at home.

Skep