If there’s one thing that’s sure to start an argument, it’s the question of whether or not pineapple should go on pizza.

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I’m of the opinion that it definitely doesn’t, but I’m sure countless people are going to disagree with me. I never ever questioned why or how pineapple managed to find its way onto pizza though. It turns out that it was the work of one man, 83-year-old Sam Panopoulus, who sadly passed away at the weekend.

Panopoulus emigrated from Greece to Canada in 1954 and opened up several pizza restaurants in the Ontario area with his brothers. It was in one of these places that the Hawaiian pizza was born:

We just put it on, just for the fun of it, see how it was going to taste.

We were young in the business and we were doing a lot of experiments.

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The rest is history. So, if like me you can’t understand why anyone would ever want to eat Hawaiian pizza, then you can blame Panopoulus for it. If you’re one of those weirdos who actually really likes this flavour though, I suppose you’ve got him to thank. Maybe go get one tonight in his memory. RIP.

Not really sure why they settled on the name of Hawaiian if it was created by a Greek man in Canada, but there you go. I guess that probably came later. It seems appropriate and sounds way better than ‘The Ontarian’ though, you have to admit.

For more pineapple pizza, check out this top chef’s verdict on it. She knows what she’s talking about.