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The bikini did not originate from the Bikini Islands. Starbucks coffee does not come from its Pacific Island namesake.

Now it appears that Hawaiian pizza is not from Hawaii, but from Chatham, Ont., where retired pizza cook Sam Panopoulos says he invented the dish at Satellite Restaurant in 1962.

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“No one made pizza in Chatham prior to that,” he recently told the Chatham Daily News. “We would drive to Windsor to order pizza.”

And this week, Mr. Panopoulos said it again, in an interview with the London Free Press

:

“What do you mean I might have? — I did,” is his terse reply.





Mr. Panopoulos’s story first came to light after a reporter for the

followed up on a

citing Mr. Panopoulos as the originator of the pizza, a combination of tomato, cheese, ham and pineapple, at the Family Circle restaurant in 1960.

The Chatham Daily News called Mr. Panopoulos, now 76 and living in nearby London, Ont., who confirmed the Wikipedia entry was correct, except for the venue and year.

The Wikipedia entry on Hawaiian pizza says that Italians believe Hawaiian pizza is considered to be a German invention.

Hawaiian pizza is the most popular pizza in Australia and is known as one of the more controversial pizza styles in North America, because it uses fruit.