Believe it or not, Hawaiian pizza was created by a Canadian. Unholy by pizza purists, this pizza found its way to many menus since it was created in 1962 by Sam Panopoulos, who was born in Greece and moved to Canada when he was 20. The Southwestern Ontario creation was named Hawaiian pizza after the brand of canned pineapple used for the pizza. Traditionally it is combined with ham as a contrast to the pineapple sweetness.
“We just put it on, just for the fun of it, see how it was going to taste,” Panopoulos told the BBC years earlier. “We were young in the business and we were doing a lot of experiments.”