Pizza toppings

I always find the international differences on simple things fascinating. The most recent one I was thinking about was pizza.

A thousand years ago I was in the US and went to a pizza place for dinner. I ordered my pizza along with the toppings I wanted, a fairly standard Supreme pizza by Aussie standards. I had to repeat the toppings a number of times, and then when the pizza did come it was still missing one.

I’d thought pizza was fairly uniform. Apparently not.

I wonder if that is still the case, or whether social media has meant we are a lot more homogenised?

Here is what a Supreme pizza looks like these days from a popular Aussie takeaway chain:

Crispy rasher bacon, pepperoni & Italian sausage, topped with fresh mushrooms, capsicum, crumbled beef & juicy pineapple, finished with vibrant spring onions & oregano

Not that much different from when I travelled all those years ago.

Can you guess which of the toppings didn’t make it to my pizza? (pineapple)

Do you have a Supreme pizza at your local pizza place? What toppings does it have?

14 comments on “Pizza toppings

  1. A “supreme” here is pepperoni, green sweet peppers, ground beef, onions, and black olives

    Your supreme looks so yummy!! And pineapple on pizza is a bit of a argument over here. I like it though!

    When I was in Korea, potato slices and shrimp were common toppings!

    • We have those toppings on some pizzas, although shrimp are called prawns and green sweet peppers are capsicum.

  2. Pineapple? Americans can’t imagine why we want pineapple on anything, including burgers! Years ago I had an American pen pal who was shocked at the very idea. I replied that this was odd coming from someone who lived in a country where people put maple syrup on bacon and eggs! He said no, they didn’t, before sheepishly sending me a clipping he had found, praising the use of maple syrup on bacon. 😂

    • Haha. I’m surprised he didn’t know about bacon and maple syrup (I really like pancakes, bacon and male syrup).

      I wonder if they do the pineapple thing in Hawaii?

  3. We’re from Chicago, whre pizza is not just something to eat, it’s what we do. Despite what you’ve heard about stuffed-crust pizza, which was essentially popularized by a couple of restaurants in Chicago (Pizzeria Uno and Pizzeria Due, which are run by the same people and are on diagonally opposite corners–Due was set up to handle the weekend overflow from Uno), we generally like thin-crust pizza (not cracker, but not deep-dish, either).

    For the last couple of years, we’ve been buying frozen pizzas made by the Home Run Inn, a popular establishment on the South Side. Their varieties are: Italian sausage, Italian sausage and pepperoni, pepperoni, four meat (sausage, pepperoni, ham and what we call bacon and you call rasher bacon), and cheese (they have mushrooms on some varieties, as well as a veggie, which we don’t buy). When we order from one of the chains (Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s) we get sausage, green pepper and onion.

    As for pineapple, there are some who like it, but the general reaction to it is “Eww, gross.”

    • I prefer thin base as well. My Barbarians love meat lovers pizza, which has a bbq sauce base with Aussie style bacon, pepperoni, meat balls and Italian sausage.

  4. I have no idea what’s on a supreme pizza. I don’t like lots of things, so I’d never. I had to look up what capsicum was. We call it bell pepper. And pineapple isn’t a thing we’d include in a supreme, so I see why it was left off. Not that pineapple isn’t something some people do, but lots of people turn their noses up at it.

    • I wonder how pineapple on pizza started over here? And I guess that means you don’t do Hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple)?

  5. The bell pepper, because that is what we call it here, or green pepper. No one knew what you were talking about, because only weird people, like me, know the scientific name, Capsicum.

    • There are a few foods we have different names for which always catch people out… cilantro = coriander, scallion = spring onion, golden raisins = sultanas, swiss chard = silverbeet

  6. I don’t eat much pizza anymore because it’s too much dairy and wheat, sigh. But I used to love lots of toppings, including olives, which many people don’t care for. My husband is a canadian bacon and pineapple guy. I had a friend once whose pizza slogan was “no fish (anchovies), fire (jalapeno) or fruit (pineapple).”

    • Jenny, don’t you have gluten free and dairy free pizza bases available? I can buy them at the supermarket and they are really nice.

      • Hmmm…I’ve yet to try a really good one. The crusts are pretty good, but the cheese doesn’t cut it, haha!

        • These don’t have any toppings, it’s just the base. I don’t add the fake cheese (although my Barbarian quite likes biocheese on them).

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