The Inventor Of The Hawaiian Pizza Has Passed Away Aged 83

The creator of the Hawaiian pizza, Sam Panopoulos, has passed away, according to reports.

The Greek-born Canadian died at the age of 83 in hospital on Thursday, according to the BBC.

Panpoulos added pineapple - a topping known for its controversy - to pizza in 1962, sparking debates among Italian pie lovers.

The restaurateur emigrated to Canada in 1954 at 20-years-old, opening several diners with his two brothers. In one of the restaurants he added tinned pineapple to a pizza, and thus the Hawaiian was born.

"We just put it on, just for the fun of it, see how it was going to taste," he told BBC earlier in the year, recounting how it was made. "We were young in the business and we were doing a lot of experiments.

"We tried it first, [then] passed it to some customers. And a couple of months later, they're going crazy about it, so we put it on the menu."

At the time customers were impressed with the new dish, though it has gone on to split fans of pizza.

They decided to name it after the brand of tinned pineapple used - 'Hawaiian' - and was typically served with mushrooms, bacon and pepperoni, but is nowadays just accompanied by ham.

The debate about whether the fruit belongs on the dish or not will rage on, but Gordon Ramsay, a man with a well respected opinion in the world of food is anti-pineapple.

In response to one Twitter fan begging the chef to allow 'creativity and initiative' in pizza-making, Gordon crushed him by tweeting: "Pineapple does not go on top of pizza."

The President of Iceland has also had his say, and wasn't in favour, either. Guðni Th. Jóhannesson addressed the issue when on a visit to a high school in the north of the country.

As a young student raised the question, Jóhannesson told the kids he'd go the extra mile and pass a ban on pineapple as a pizza topping.

Another chef felt the same, when a woman placed an order for pineapple on a pizza and it was made to order, minus the fruit, but with the addition of a $5 note to the box with the message: "Couldn't bring myself to put pineapple on it. That's gross. Sorry."

Still, to many Sam Panopoulos' invention is one that is much loved. RIP.

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.