It’s hard to find a more divisive pizza topic than pineapple. According to a YouGov survey,1 12% of Americans rank pineapple in their three favorite toppings. Pineapple-on-pizza eaters tend to be younger and from western states. By the same survey, 24% of Americans consider pineapple one of their least favorite toppings—still, not as despised as anchovies.
Skipping the argument that tomato, found on most pizzas, is also a fruit from South America,2 we can all agree that the Hawaiian practice of putting pineapple on pizza is as strange as it would be to top a pizza with, say, honey or figs.
The etymological origin of the word pizza is hazy. It could be from Medieval Greek pita (pie) or the Old High German pizzo (morsel). At least one source3 traces the origin of pizza to the Latin pinsere (to pound). In any case, the first known use of the word pizza is in a document from the town of Gaeta, in 997 AD.4
It is certain that it (pizza) was born in a portion of the Mediterranean, that the term appeared for the first time in 997 in Gaeta, in the Codex diplomaticus Cajtanus, and that it was Plato who provided the first written description of a dinner based on a primitive pizza, confirming that the tradition was probably introduced, around 600 BC, by the Greeks in southern Italy. — La Repubblica
Pizza as we know it today was invented in Naples in 1889 by Raffaele Esposito, in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita.5 A pizza margherita is topped with tomatoes, mozzarella or fior di latte cheese, basil, and a drizzle of olive oil. There's no pepperoni, no anchovies, no barbecued chicken, and definitely no pineapple. Italians are fiercely protective of this perfect creation, a worldwide symbol of their culture.
Both etymologically and culinarily,6 pizza has a long history. People are opinionated about both pizza and grammar. It's not much of a stretch to say that some people feel the same way about Hawaiian pizza as others feel about non-binary pronouns, data as a mass noun, or the passive voice. Pineapple on pizza is just as obviously wrong as splitting an infinitive or putting a preposition at the end of a sentence.
Unfortunately for the pizza prescriptivists, the facts don't back up their pineapple prejudice. Those Italians who revere the one true margherita pizza? They also enjoy pizza topped with potato, squash, pumpkin, peas, asparagus, or tuna. You can even find pizza with pears and walnuts, drizzled with honey.7
This new, trendy style of putting fruit on pizza developed just a few years ago: in the ancient Roman Empire, long before Christopher Columbus brought tomatoes from the New World, pizza was topped with—guess what—honey and figs.
Grammar enthusiasts who insist on proper preposition placement, unsplit infinitives, and using the "correct" plurals ignorami and syllabi8 are trying to wedge English into the Latin grammar of a certain period of time, perhaps for sentimental reasons. In the same way, some pizza purists romanticize9 19th-century Naples, hoping to freeze pizza10 at an early point in its development. Others, from New York, Chicago, or New Haven, believe that their New World pizza adaptation is the one true pizza.
Insisting on the existence of one true pizza is like trying to bring back thee and thou. Like language, pizza has evolved to embrace and express new ideas, and has given voice to cultures all over the world. Some of the best true Neapolitan pizza in the world comes from Japan.11 Some of the most interesting toppings are in Rome. There are dessert pizzas, Desi pizzas, and delicious pies featuring alfredo sauce or barbecue. There are sauceless pizzas with clams, heralded as canon in the northeastern U.S., Mexican-style pizzas, and Thanksgiving leftover pizzas. You don't have to like any of these pizzas personally, but you can't say they aren't pizza.
Oh, and that Hawaiian pizza? It was invented in Canada.
See YouGov Survey Finds Americans Deeply Divided Over Pineapple As a Pizza Topping in PMQ Pizza Magazine, February 2019.
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad." —Brian O'Driscoll, rugby hero.
See Sorpresa: la parola "pizza" è nata a Gaeta in la Repubblica, 9 February 2015.
Some of the details are disputed by historical research, but the gist of the legend is more or less correct.
Yes, culinarily.
There's no plural for ignoramus in Latin because it's a verb, not a noun. The word syllabus is based on a misprint, so back-forming the plural syllabi, while not incorrect, has no etymological foundation. See The Mediums are the Message.
Etymologists will see what I did there.
Some frozen pizza is good.