This I Believe: Pineapple Belongs on Pizza

This I Believe: Pineapple Belongs on Pizza

Lilly Merritt

One summer day in Wilcox, when I was young and still wearing Cinderella dress-up clothes as casual everyday wear, my life changed forever. My mom and I walked into my grandad’s pizza shop on a dusty road in a town with nothing to do, where I proceeded to pull myself onto a chair, and was greeted by a fresh-baked pizza…topped with something I had never seen before. From that point on, pizza was never just tomato sauce and shredded cheese. It became a meal I looked forward to every Friday for “Pizza Night” at my dining room table.

I believe that pineapple was made for pizza. This love withholds valuable morals which accompany the belief that pizza is where pineapple belongs: standing for what you believe in;  being a leader, not a follower; and doing what makes you happiest despite the opinions of others.

Pizza and pineapple cater a tasteful combination between Brazilian and Italian cultures. The taste of juicy pineapple, tomato sauce, Italian cheeses, garlic, and oregano is one that only the most sophisticated tongues can appreciate. I would much prefer smelling an exotic blend of oven-baked fruit and cheese when I open an alluring grease-stained pizza box than one with mushrooms, olives, and ham.

When one ajars a pizza box, they are not just opening a cardboard platter, they are opening a delicate consolidation of cuisine history. When your nose takes its first smell, it is breathing in the anecdote of June 11, 1889, in which the noble Neapolitan pizza-maker,  Raffaele Esposito, created the first Pizza Margherita for Queen Margherita herself. When your lips taste the first bite, you are tasting a union of the United States first pizzeria, Lombardi’s, and the antiquity of Paraguay’s native fruit.

I believe that shamelessly enjoying pineapple on my pizza has contributed to who I am as a unique individual. I believe in the roast sessions I face for my preferred pizza toppings. I believe in being an inconvenience on family pizza night and making my parents divide my sister’s pepperoni pizza into half-pepperoni and half-pineapple. I believe in the amused looks that I get across the counter when ordering at every pizza joint.

I believe in coming together for something greater than a divide between our selection of pizza toppings, and that is coming to together for the love for pizza. Despite my fancy for pineapple toppings, I cannot deny that every pizza was created equal.

I believe that pineapple pizza is the best comfort food, and that no matter how many girls break my heart, pineapple pizza never will. I am certain that a Neapolitan pizza will never give me the contentment that a pineapple pizza does while I am crying, writing essays I put off until the last minute or over the ending of Sweet Home Alabama.

I believe in justifying that because I put a fruit on my pizza, it is a healthy and wholesome meal, containing every food group on the food pyramid in eight delicious slices that may be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Pineapple was made for pizza, this I believe.