2021.05.10 伟大的夏威夷披萨文化战争

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WORLD IN A DISH
The great Hawaiian pizza culture war
How pineapple broke the internet



May 10th 2021
BY WILL COLDWELL

The fateful experiment happened in 1962. Sam Panopoulos, a restaurant owner, was not afraid of taking chances. He had left Greece at the age of 20 to start a new life in Canada and went on to run a successful restaurant in downtown Chatham, Ontario. He was also known for his mischievous sense of humour. His fateful culinary creation combined both elements of his personality. While he was making a pizza, he cracked open a can of sliced pineapple – and did the unthinkable.

Sixty years on, the Hawaiian pizza, a standard mozzarella-and-tomato base topped with pineapple and ham or bacon, has become a contender for the most controversial dish ever made. Unlike other joyfully divisive foods (Marmite, anyone?) it’s not enough simply to love or hate it. In an era defined by a propensity for polarisation, the debate over the merits (or failings) of pineapple on pizza has become a global pastime. Profiles on dating apps tease potential matches with the prospect of a food fight. “Do you like pineapple on pizza?” is simultaneously an icebreaker and a dealbreaker. Public figures have taken sides: Paris Hilton loves it; Gordon Ramsay is very angry about it.


The pineapple-pizza debate has become so pervasive that in 2019 the American government launched “The War on Pineapple”, a public-information campaign that illustrated how people can be manipulated through online posts about divisive issues. Why does the Hawaiian pizza provoke such strong opinions? Panopoulos added pineapple, he said, only “for the fun of it”. When the controversy over his creation went viral in 2017 he emerged from retirement to wring his hands. “What’s going on with everybody?” he asked.

The Hawaiian pizza was not always so contentious. In the 1950s and 1960s pizza was still a relative novelty for most Americans. With the advent of domestic freezers, pre-prepared pizza bases offered a blank canvas for self-expression. Recipes in American newspapers suggested trying all manner of non-traditional pizza toppings, including baked potato and sour cream, or even eating pizza as dessert, with sugar, cinnamon and banana on top of melted mozzarella. Views on which toppings were acceptable had not yet hardened into religious dogma.


The post-war period was a time of culinary curiosity and experimentation in North America. Italian cuisine took off in the suburbs, and at the same time Tiki culture, with its cocktails, hula girls and pineapples, blossomed as servicemen returned from the South Pacific. Pineapple upside-down cake became a favourite dessert. Canned pineapple was a major export for Hawaii, which until the 1960s produced three-quarters of global supply. So when Panopoulos created his new fruity pizza it was obvious what to call it: “Hawaiian”. Pineapple was just one of several distinctive American twists on pizza: in California, barbecue chicken became a popular topping, and in Chicago, the deep-dish base reigned supreme. Fashions for different combinations have come and gone, but the Hawaiian remains one of America’s most popular pizzas.

At some point almost every foodstuff has been tried as a pizza topping. Pizza had long been an accessible, popular food since its genesis as a cheap meal for sailors in Naples. But as pizza became a global fast-food phenomenon, it also became a reflection of class: would you celebrate the “authentic” recipe or succumb to a fruit-topped bastardisation of it?

“Do you like pineapple on pizza?” is simultaneously an icebreaker and a dealbreaker

Purists picked on pineapple as an example of how far pizza had drifted from its roots. The tropical novelty was as un-Italian as you could get. Never mind that the upmarket “gourmet” pizzas served in swanky Californian restaurants were just as inauthentic. The Hawaiian pizza crossed a line.


National and cultural pride added bite to the argument. As pizza became Americanised, the nation that created it fought back. “We are against the cultural and commercial deformation of our pizza,” said Antonio Pace, founder of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (The True Neapolitan Pizza Association) at the organisation’s launch in 1984. “We just want to affirm our ancient traditions.”

By the 1980s Italian-Americans had risen up the social ranks and some felt their very identity was at stake. In 2002 an Italian-American pizza chef told the New York Times that he had only once put pineapple on a pizza: when a customer who was eight months pregnant told him she was craving it. “But that’s the last time,” he said. Seven years later, when the Neapolitan pizza gained protected status under European law, the same newspaper asked a pizzaiolo in Naples for his opinion: “Pizza with pineapples? That’s a cake.”

Pre-prepared pizza bases offered a blank canvas for self-expression

Despite being one of the most popular pizzas in the world, the Hawaiian became shorthand for inauthenticity, fast food and poor taste. But it took the addition of one final ingredient to amplify and globalise the controversy over Hawaiian pizza: the internet.

Over the past decade online culture has warped real-world disputes, references and ephemera into new, often unrecognisable forms. Social-media platforms have become spaces to discuss cat photos or fall down rabbit holes of extremist politics. Whimsical and accessible, the Hawaiian pizza proved perfect fodder for the internet’s meme machine.

The distinctiveness of pineapple was at home in a realm that relished the celebration (or desecration) of subject matters both arbitrary and weird. Best of all, it was a food with conflict at its heart. It was not the Hawaiian pizza that became a meme, but the debate about Hawaiian pizza. To get involved, you had to have a stance.


In December 2009 a Facebook page named “Pineapple does NOT belong on PIZZA!” was launched. According to Know Your Meme, a database of internet culture, this page started the online chatter. People jumped at the chance to indulge in tongue-in-cheek hyperbole. “It’s OK to be female, male, gay, straight...but it’s never OK to put pineapple on pizza,” declared one meme. Others, taking online debate to its inevitable conclusion, suggested that Adolf Hitler was a fan of the pineapple topping. “Knights of Pineapple”, a Reddit group founded in 2015 which now has 68,000 members, promised to “fight for the deliciousness of pineapples on pizza”.

Would you celebrate the “authentic” recipe or succumb to a fast-food, fruit-topped bastardisation of it?

The debate broke free of online forums. In 2017 the president of Iceland was reportedly asked by a student where he stood on the matter: “I would ban it if I had the power to set laws,” he said. The same year Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, came out swinging for the home team: “I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation. #TeamPineapple,” he tweeted.

Against a backdrop of trolling and takedowns, online echo-chambers and elections disrupted by social media, the pineapple-pizza debate was not really about food at all. It was performative polarisation: a way of mocking the worst aspects of the web. Many issues were becoming almost too fraught to discuss – both online and off – yet here was an inconsequential subject that everyone could weigh in on and argue about, without having to worry about real-world consequences.


Perhaps that explains why pollsters, wrong-footed by the shock results of the Brexit referendum and the American presidential election of 2016, resorted to surveying people about pizza. YouGov determined that 53% of Britons approved of the pineapple topping in 2017 (only a slightly higher share of the population than voted to leave the European Union). Pizza has become something you can profess to care about very strongly, without really caring at all. The dish, often shared and ordered in groups, invites debate and discussion – but friends and foes of pineapple pizza can still dine at the same table. And in practice, most of us will scoff any slice we are given.

The pineapple-pizza debate was an example of performative polarisation

Social-media posts celebrating or lampooning the dish continue. “If 2020 was a pizza topping, it would be pineapple,” is truly a lament of our times. When America’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wanted to illustrate how foreign actors can exploit hot-button issues, as occurred in 2016 when Russian trolls used “meme warfare” to sow division in America, the pineapple-pizza debate was an obvious and recognisable choice.

The organisation created an infographic to show how the discourse that surrounded the pineapple topping could be politicised and inflamed with statements such as: “being anti-pineapple is un-American” or “millennials are ruining pizza”. Later, having evidently acquired a taste for fruity pizza, the cybersecurity agency collaborated with psychologists at Cambridge University to create an online game designed to “inoculate” players against political misinformation by helping them recognise these processes. In it, players were invited to foment disagreement in the peaceful Harmony Square, a neighbourhood famous for its living statue, its majestic swan – and its annual pineapple-pizza festival.

It took the addition of one final ingredient to amplify the controversy over Hawaiian pizza: the internet

Division, it turned out, was being stoked much closer to home than anyone at the cybersecurity agency could have predicted. In November 2020, after weeks of bluster about electoral fraud, Donald Trump fired Chris Krebs, head of America’s cybersecurity agency, for publicly affirming the integrity of November’s presidential election. Three days later, Krebs tweeted: “I have a confession to make: I actually like pineapple on pizza. Don’t @ me. #WarOnPineapple”. The replies, unsurprisingly, were polarised. But for once they weren’t along partisan lines. The Hawaiian remains a refreshingly low-stakes, light-hearted battle. It’s something everyone can enjoy. A bit like pizza.■

Will Coldwell is a freelance writer and former digital editor at 1843

ILLUSTRATIONS: MICHAEL GLENWOOD




一道菜中的世界
伟大的夏威夷披萨文化战争
菠萝如何打破了互联网



2021年5月10日
作者：Will Coldwell

给这篇文章
命运的实验发生在1962年。萨姆-帕诺普洛斯，一位餐馆老板，并不害怕冒险。他20岁时离开希腊，在加拿大开始了新的生活，后来在安大略省查塔姆市中心成功经营了一家餐馆。他还以其顽皮的幽默感而闻名。他决定性的烹饪创作结合了他性格中的两个元素。当他在制作比萨饼时，他打开了一罐菠萝片--做出了不可思议的事情。

60年过去了，夏威夷披萨，一个标准的马苏里拉和番茄的基础上，加上菠萝和火腿或培根，已经成为有史以来最具争议的菜肴的竞争者。与其他令人愉快的分裂性食品（Marmite，任何人？）不同的是，仅仅爱或恨它是不够的。在一个以两极分化为特征的时代，关于披萨上的菠萝的优点（或缺点）的辩论已经成为一种全球性的消遣。约会软件上的简介以食物大战的前景来挑逗潜在的匹配者。"你喜欢披萨上的菠萝吗？"这句话既是破冰之举，也是破局之策。公众人物已经站在了一边。帕里斯-希尔顿喜欢它；戈登-拉姆塞对此非常生气。


菠萝披萨的争论已经变得如此普遍，以至于美国政府在2019年发起了 "菠萝战争"，这是一场公共信息运动，说明人们可以通过网上发布的关于分裂性问题的帖子来操纵。为什么夏威夷披萨会激起如此强烈的意见？帕诺普洛斯说，他添加菠萝只是 "为了好玩"。当关于他的创作的争议在2017年成为病毒式传播时，他从退休状态中走出来，扭头就走。"他问："大家都怎么了？

夏威夷披萨并不总是那么有争议的。在20世纪50年代和60年代，比萨饼对大多数美国人来说仍然是一个相对新颖的东西。随着家用冰箱的出现，预先准备好的比萨饼底为自我表达提供了空白的画布。美国报纸上的食谱建议尝试各种非传统的比萨饼配料，包括烤土豆和酸奶油，甚至把比萨饼当作甜点来吃，在融化的马苏里拉奶酪上放上糖、肉桂和香蕉。关于哪些配料是可以接受的观点还没有硬化成宗教教条。


战后时期是北美的烹饪好奇心和实验的时期。意大利菜在郊区兴起，与此同时，随着军人从南太平洋返回，提基文化，包括鸡尾酒、草裙舞女郎和菠萝，也开花结果。菠萝颠倒蛋糕成为最受欢迎的甜点。菠萝罐头是夏威夷的主要出口产品，直到20世纪60年代，其产量占全球供应量的四分之三。因此，当帕诺普洛斯创造了他的新的果味披萨时，很明显该叫它什么。"夏威夷"。菠萝只是美国披萨的几种独特的变化之一：在加利福尼亚，烤鸡成为一种流行的配料，而在芝加哥，深盘底层的披萨占据了最高地位。不同组合的时尚来了又走，但夏威夷披萨仍然是美国最受欢迎的披萨之一。

在某些时候，几乎每一种食品都曾被尝试作为比萨饼的配料。自从披萨作为那不勒斯水手的廉价餐食诞生以来，它长期以来一直是一种易得的、受欢迎的食物。但随着比萨饼成为一种全球性的快餐现象，它也成为一种阶级的反映：你会赞美 "正宗 "的配方，还是屈服于以水果为顶的私生子？

"你喜欢披萨上的菠萝吗？"这同时也是一个破冰者和交易者。

纯粹主义者把菠萝作为一个例子，说明披萨与它的根源相去甚远。这种热带的新事物是你能得到的最不意大利的东西。别的不说，在豪华的加利福尼亚餐馆提供的高档 "美食 "披萨也是一样的不正宗。夏威夷披萨越过了一条线。


民族和文化的自豪感为这一论点增添了活力。随着比萨饼的美国化，创造它的国家进行了反击。真正的那不勒斯比萨协会（Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana）的创始人安东尼奥-佩斯（Antonio Pace）在1984年该组织成立时说："我们反对对我们的比萨进行文化和商业改造"。"我们只是想肯定我们古老的传统"。

到20世纪80年代，意大利裔美国人的社会地位不断提高，一些人感到他们的身份受到了威胁。2002年，一位意大利裔美国人的披萨厨师告诉《纽约时报》，他只在披萨上放过一次菠萝：当时一位怀孕八个月的顾客告诉他她很想吃菠萝。他说："但这是最后一次了"。七年后，当那不勒斯比萨饼获得了欧洲法律的保护地位时，同一家报纸询问了那不勒斯的一位比萨饼店主的意见。"披萨加菠萝？那是一个蛋糕"。

预先准备好的比萨饼饼底为自我表达提供了空白的画布

尽管夏威夷披萨是世界上最受欢迎的披萨之一，但它已成为不正宗、快餐和低劣品味的代名词。但是，最后一个因素的加入扩大了对夏威夷披萨的争议并使之全球化：互联网。

在过去的十年里，网络文化已经将现实世界的争端、参考资料和偶发事件扭曲成新的、通常无法识别的形式。社交媒体平台已经成为讨论猫咪照片或掉进极端主义政治的兔子洞的空间。夏威夷披萨异想天开，易于接受，被证明是互联网备忘录机器的完美素材。

菠萝的独特之处在于，它是一个乐于庆祝（或亵渎）任意和奇怪主题的领域。最重要的是，它是一种以冲突为核心的食物。不是夏威夷披萨成为了一个备忘录，而是关于夏威夷披萨的辩论。要参与其中，你必须有一个立场。


2009年12月，一个名为 "菠萝不属于披萨 "的Facebook页面被推出。根据互联网文化数据库Know Your Meme的说法，这个页面引发了网上的讨论。人们抓住这个机会，沉浸在口无遮拦的夸张中。"成为女性、男性、同性恋、异性恋都可以......但在比萨饼上放菠萝是绝对不可以的，"一个备忘录宣布。另一些人把网上的辩论带到了其不可避免的结论，认为阿道夫-希特勒是菠萝顶的粉丝。"菠萝骑士 "是一个成立于2015年的Reddit团体，现在有68,000名成员，他们承诺要 "为披萨上的菠萝美味而战"。

你会庆祝 "正宗 "的配方，还是屈服于快餐式的水果顶的私生子？

这场辩论挣脱了网络论坛的束缚。据报道，2017年，冰岛总统被一名学生问到他在这个问题上的立场。"他说："如果我有权力制定法律，我会禁止它。同年，加拿大总理贾斯汀-特鲁多(Justin Trudeau)站出来为主队摇旗呐喊。"我有一个菠萝。我有一个比萨饼。我支持这个安大略省西南部的美味创作。#TeamPineapple," 他在推特上说。

在嘲讽和攻击、网上回声室和被社交媒体破坏的选举的背景下，菠萝比萨的辩论根本不是关于食物。这是一种表演性的两极分化：一种嘲弄网络最糟糕方面的方式。许多问题几乎都变得难以讨论--无论是在线还是离线--然而这里有一个无关紧要的话题，每个人都可以对其进行评价和争论，而不必担心现实世界的后果。


也许这就解释了为什么民调机构被英国脱欧公投和2016年美国总统选举的震惊结果所误导，诉诸于调查人们对比萨的看法。YouGov确定，2017年有53%的英国人认可菠萝酱（仅比投票离开欧盟的人口比例略高）。披萨已经成为你可以自称非常关心的东西，而实际上根本不关心。这道菜，经常在群体中分享和订购，引来辩论和讨论--但菠萝比萨的朋友和敌人仍然可以在同一张桌子上用餐。而实际上，我们中的大多数人都会把给我们的任何一块披萨吃掉。

菠萝比萨的辩论是一个表演性极化的例子

社交媒体上庆祝或嘲笑这道菜的帖子不断。"如果2020年是一个比萨饼的配料，那就是菠萝"，这确实是我们这个时代的一个悲哀。当美国网络安全和基础设施安全局想要说明外国行为者如何利用热点问题时，就像2016年俄罗斯巨魔利用 "备忘录战争 "在美国播种分裂那样，菠萝与比萨的辩论是一个明显和可识别的选择。

该组织制作了一张信息图，以显示围绕菠萝酱的话语如何被政治化，并通过诸如以下的声明煽动起来。"反对菠萝是非美国人 "或 "千禧一代正在毁掉比萨饼"。后来，该网络安全机构显然获得了对果味披萨的兴趣，与剑桥大学的心理学家合作，创建了一个在线游戏，旨在通过帮助玩家识别这些过程来 "接种 "政治错误信息。在游戏中，玩家被邀请在和平的和谐广场上煽动分歧，这个社区以其活生生的雕像、雄伟的天鹅以及每年的菠萝比萨节而闻名。

最后加入了一种成分，扩大了对夏威夷披萨的争议：互联网。

事实证明，网络安全机构的任何人都没有预料到，该组织在离家很近的地方被煽动起来。2020年11月，在对选举舞弊吹嘘了数周之后，唐纳德-特朗普解雇了美国网络安全机构的负责人克里斯-克雷布斯，因为他公开肯定了11月总统选举的完整性。三天后，克雷布斯在推特上说。"我有件事要坦白。我实际上喜欢披萨上的菠萝。不要@我。#对菠萝的战争"。不出所料，回复是两极化的。但这一次，他们并没有按照党派的路线。夏威夷人仍然是一场令人耳目一新的低风险、轻松的战斗。它是每个人都可以享受的东西。有点像披萨。

威尔-科德维尔是一名自由撰稿人，曾任1843年的数字编辑。

插图。Michael Glenwood