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Comment by mrmincent | Hacker News Reader

Lately I’ve found that the people who complain about pineapple on pizza these days are the sort of people who used to love it until they found out that you should hate pineapple on pizza, probably the same sort of people that would’ve sneered at putting tomato on flatbread back in 1600s Italy.

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My theory is that the backlash is largely due to implementation problems. The pineapple chunks need to be small, without that tough part of the pineapple and they should be paired with a contrasting strong flavor like spicy or savory. A lot of pizza places don't bother with either - chunks too big, paired with sad ham. I think a lot of these people haven't had good pizza with pineapple, or it's been so long they forgot, and that's just an injustice against humanity.

Yes! I usually order some kind of combo pizza then add pineapple and anchovies. The pineapple needs something to balance.

That's an oddly specific and nuanced set of facts to know about various people. Are they confessing this to you, and if so is it spontaneous or under your examination? Or, are you reading this into their psyches from a distance? Or, are you making these observations about people at different parts of their lives before and after their respective inflection points regarding when they personally come to realize hating pineapple on pizza is popular?

Yep, people I’ve known my whole life, used to order Hawaiian pizza with them years ago, now they make gagging noises when someone else orders it.

I will echo your sentiment even with the obvious caveat of “this may not apply to everyone everywhere so please avoid the obligatory well-actually response”.

It’s just a social wave/trend, it’ll pass in a few years and suddenly everyone will love pineapple on pizza again. Go figure.

Personally I have hated it as long as I can remember (over 20 years), especially since many Finnish microwave/oven ham "pizzas" often contained pineapple that I had to pick out manually (and still had to deal with the leftover juices).

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