Hawaiian pizza is a pizza originating in Canada, traditionally topped with pineapple, tomato sauce,  mozzarella cheese, and either ham or bacon.  Sam Panopoulos, a Greek-born Canadian, created the first Hawaiian pizza at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada, in 1962. Inspired in part by his experience preparing Chinese dishes which commonly mix sweet and sour flavours, Panopoulos experimented with adding pineapple, ham, bacon, and other toppings. These additions were not initially very popular.

But the idea for making pizza at the restaurant at all came after a trip to nearby Windsor, when Panopoulos first tasted pizza, a food trend that was slowly trickling into Canada. In an interview with the CBC, Panopoulos said, “Along the way we threw some pineapples on it and nobody liked it at first. But after that, they went crazy about it. Because those days nobody was mixing sweets and sours and all that. It was plain, plain food.” Panopoulos later added ham to the pizza and named the pizza “Hawaiian” after the brand of canned pineapple he used.

For a humble pizza topping, pineapple often inspires some very strong feelings. You would think that what someone else chooses to put on a pizza affects no one but that person, but in the case of Hawaiian pizza, you would apparently be dead wrong. See the title of this Wall Street Journal article: “A Divided Nation Reveals Itself In One Question: Hawaiian Pizza, Yes or No?” Terms like “divided nation” are usually reserved for slightly more consequential issues like nuclear warfare or whether the toilet paper roll should be facing in or out, but it is appropriate for the level of vitriol that Canadian/Hawaiian pizza brings forth.

The President of Iceland threatened to ban Hawaiian pizza. In a question-and-answer session with high school students in Northern Iceland, one cheeky pupil asked Iceland’s President, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, what he thought about pineapple as a pizza topping. The president did not hold back, telling the student that, if he had the power to pass laws, he would ban it in Iceland. Twitter had a field day with the statement. DiGiorno saw a great marketing opportunity, tweeting a picture of its Hawaiian pizza with the caption “No ban here.”

In response to the President of Iceland Incident of 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter, saying: “I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation. #TeamPineapple.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a man the size of a fridge who is not to be messed with, wrote in an Instagram caption, “As for my pizza toppings — keep in mind, I’m the guy who likes to put tequila and brown sugar in my oatmeal, so pineapple on pizza is MY JAM — with ham.”

It follows that, according to Johnson, if you think that Hawaiian pizza is a crime against pizza, to quote The Rock’s WWE catchphrase, “It doesn’t matter what you think.” Actor Jeff Goldblum said in response to a question from a fan that, “Like there’s no bad dog, there’s no bad pizza. I love pineapple on pizza.” Goldblum continued, “I love anchovies on pizza.” Hawaiian pizza and chicken pizza each account for 15 percent of all pizza sales in Australia.