Fancy a Kiwi Pizza? For crust’s sake!
If you know Italians, you’re probably aware that they have a sacred bond with food, especially with all the recipes of their traditional cuisine. So it’s no wonder that hell broke loose when a Swedish man dared to twist a grand classic and requested the world’s first kiwi-topped pizza. Yes, you’ve read it right: a pizza with kiwifruit.
Although the incident didn’t spark a diplomatic row between Italy and Sweden, it did, however, stir quite an uproar on social media, with horrified Italians lashing out at the Swede for destroying their beloved dish. But let’s proceed with order, and let me explain you first how the Kiwi Pizza came to be.
The naive origin
It all started when our man Stellan Johansson received 10 kilograms of kiwis from his brother in early January. “In how many different ways can one consume kiwis?” — must have Johansson probably thought. So, after trying all sorts of recipes with them, he brought some of the fruits to his local pizzeria and asked for a pizza featuring kiwi slices as a topping. The pizzeria satisfied Johansson’s request — without banning him from civil society, purists will add — and shortly after delivered our man a smoking hot Margherita with ham and kiwifruit on top.
Johansson then posted pictures of his new creation on Facebook. “I skipped cooking today and ordered a pizza in Skottorp instead,” wrote the caption.
Skippade matlagningen idag och beställde pizza i Skottorp istället
Geplaatst door Stellan Johansson op Zondag 5 januari 2020
“An unholy abomination”
As you can imagine, the pictures went viral on social media and, in a few clicks, Johansson’s harmless post grabbed the Internet’s attention… and fury. Remember the infamous debate on whether you should (or should not) add pineapple to pizza? Well, this discussion went down the same way, and mixed feelings emerged among the web’s users.
Many people took the news with humour, with some actually saying they believe the pizza tastes much better than how it looks. Others, including many Italian Internet users, made it look like a Pandora’s box of criticism was opened up wide. On Facebook, a user commented “It is a heresy,” while another typed a rather intuitive “Barbarian,” and another one cried “please don’t call it pizza… it’s horrible and [an] offence [to] the Neapolitan food.”
Of course, some other netizens resorted to the evergreen “shame on you” and “no respect for Italian food culture,” whereas on Twitter, a user wondered whether “we were leaving psychopathy in 2019.” But I guess that’s what you get when you mess with Italian food.
Amid the digital meltdown, Johansson jumped on Reddit to defend his customized pizza — and specify it wasn’t made in Denmark, as reported in the title of the Reddit thread.
So what have we learnt from this story?
- According to Italian (and foreign) cuisine purists, kiwis and pizza do not go together — and yes, this counts for all other types of fruit. Sorry pineapple and banana-curry pizza enthusiasts! Is there a specific reason for this sort of ban? Probably, but that’s a story I will tell some other time.
- If you really can’t resist the temptation of adding something different to your pizza — because cooking is all about fantasy, am I right? — do not post pictures of your creations online. This way no one will get mad and desperate about the stuff you eat, and you’ll be able to enjoy your creation nuisance-free.
- Our fellow countrymen and women are very sentimental about their traditional culinary heritage, and they will have no mercy for anyone who dares to experiment with or change the recipes that their loving, ever-cooking grandmothers passed on to them. If you want to see a proof of general disappointment and judgment from our people that goes beyond the reception of the kiwipizza, I highly recommend you to have a look at the Twitter page Italians Mad At Food.
If you have tried or are going to try soon a Kiwi Pizza (or any other kind of ““unholy” pizza), let us know and share your experience with us!
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