FOR:
by Thea Stephenson

You know what it means if you don’t like pieapple on pizza? It means you never developed an adult palate. You have underdeveloped senses. You cannot fully comprehend the glory that is a juicy piece of the tropics amidst a slice of magnificent cheesy goodness. The mixing of sweet, fruity wonder with the savoury delight that is cheese demonstrates an unparalleled level of flavour interaction that cannot be rivalled by any other.

If you dislike this delightful combo, consider that Hawaiian pizza (perhaps the pinnacle pizza of pineapple) is the most popular pizza in Australia, accounting for 15 per cent of all pizza sales. So you may indeed be missing out on the best flavour ever as well as missing out on a key part of Australian pizza culture.

I myself grew up eating Hawaiian pizza. It was my most beloved meal (closely followed by a burger which had to feature both pineapple and cheese to be good enough).

However when I became vegetarian I had a tough fate to confront. I had to leave behind my Hawaiian days – no more being transported to a tropical paradise of bliss (and cheese). I found solace soon after in the knowledge that the majority of vegetarian pizzas feature pineapple as a key ingredient and those that didn’t could quickly be fixed for an extra dollar.

As a vegetarian, pineapple is the closest thing I get to a juicy piece of ham or pepperoni on pizza. Pineapple is the thing that breaks through the flurry of saltiness that is olives and cheese. Pineapple is indeed my little slice of heaven on top of the slice of heaven we call pizza.

If you cannot appreciate the role that pineapple plays in the lives of the many, then you are a cruel and unjust being. One who does not fully acknowledge the full spectrum of flavours in our world, one who cannot appreciate the salvation that is pineapple and one who does not deserve their meat lovers deluxe or any pizza at all.

AGAINST:
by Pippa Mills

It’s without a doubt one of the first heated discussions we ever engaged ourselves in as a child, that introduced us mini humans to a world of critical debate. Do we like pineapple on our pizza?

It’s bound to trigger endless, passionately expounded disputes today, among our sophisticated, young intelligent selves – just as it did when we swung vigorously on the primary school monkey bars, desperately trying to convince our fellow classmates that PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA SUCKS!

Pineapple is the kid in your group assignment who doesn’t have any other friends, so your tutor pitifully tosses him in the mix of H1 students Tomato, Mushroom, Cheese and Ham. Pineapple brings the team down.

Why is that we feel the need to make amends to an already existing delicious, rounded doughy piece of heaven? Do we not trust our Italian buddies, who spent centuries mastering the art of pizza-making? Is their passion for food not convincing enough for us to trust that a sour, ulcer-inducing lump growing on the trees of Hawaii shouldn’t be integrated into the pizza topping family?

Pizza is a meal best served at 3am. Trying to get my own two feet to walk in the same direction is enough of a difficulty for my brain to manage at 3am, let alone distinguish two disparate flavours. If I order a “ham and watermelon pizza” you’d tell me to “go home, you’re drunk”, so why this any different?  

Allow me to conclude by contending that there is a reason the expert chefs of the cooking world decided to separate dessert from the main meal in the first place. Pineapple on pizza negates the sweet and savoury divide, which I’m sorry to say to all you Master Chef aficionados, is a very delicate combination which only the Heston Blumenthals of the world can create in a laboratory kitchen. It is not enough to simply smack a lump of sour fruit onto a pizza and call it a “masterpiece”.