Melvin Durai
I’m not Italian, but pizza is one of my comfort foods. I could eat pizza almost every day without complaining. That doesn’t mean, however, that I could eat any pizza. The quality of pizza can vary considerably, depending on how you make it or where you buy it. Pizza also comes with toppings — and the list of toppings is seemingly endless. You can put anything from A (anchovies) to Z (zucchini) on a pizza. My favourite pizza topping is banana peppers. I also like mushrooms and pepperoni. When I make pizza at home, I do not add many toppings, much to my wife’s dismay. If I let her handle the toppings, she will top the pizza with every vegetable known to mankind. It would be a very healthy pizza, but she would have to eat it by herself, while I shake my head at the broccoli, brinjal and bhindi. Because I have strong preferences on pizza toppings, I am very sympathetic toward the Italian chef who lost his job at an Australian restaurant in part because he was unwilling to put pineapple on pizza. Davide Tamburella worked as the head chef at La Costa, an Italian restaurant in Queensland. According to a report in The Guardian, a Fair Work Commission ruling filed last week revealed that Tamburella was fired on 20 May, two weeks after he was asked to appear in front of his boss, Elliot Ingram, “to address performance concerns.” Those concerns included his aversion to pineapple as a pizza topping, which he considered “an insult to his culture.” Before you judge him, try to imagine an Indian chef being asked to put chocolate in his samosas. Tamburella had turned down a well-heeled customer. “We had a large function come in, and they were spending in excess of $15,000, and the guy paying for the whole thing says: ‘Look, I need to get some ham and pineapple pizza,’” Ingram told The Guardian. It was apparently the third time that Tamburella had declined a pineapple topping request.
Instead of being flexible, he had asked Ingram to “check how important it is for Italians not to put pineapple on a pizza.” You have to admire Tamburella’s culinary convictions. Not many people are willing to take a principled stand against pineapple. The chef was willing to put not just his job on the line, but also his visa. His employer had sponsored him for permanent residency three years earlier, but since it had not yet come through, losing his job meant that he would have to start all over with a new employer. The Guardian reports that Tamburella now works for another Italian restaurant, one that does not have pineapple on its menu. It’s worth noting, however, that pineapple is a common topping in pizza restaurants in North America (and probably elsewhere). What’s known as Hawaiian pizza comes with both ham and pineapple as toppings. It’s not my favourite pizza, but if I worked at a pizza restaurant, I wouldn’t lose my job over it. I’d just give a nasty side eye to anyone who orders it. Tamburella would undoubtedly frown at Indian pizza, featuring such toppings as tikka masala, butter chicken, tandoori chicken and paneer. Indian pizza is popular in various parts of the world, wherever there are enough Indians to dictate what gets put on pizza. You can also find Mexican pizza, Japanese pizza and Chinese pizza, among others, around the world. When it rains, it pours. But if you don’t like the toppings raining down on your pizza, don’t get an umbrella. Get a Tamburella.