Sweden’s Banana-Topped Pizza Puts Hawaiian Pizza to Shame

If you thought pineapple-topped Hawaiian pizza was a culinary crime, wait until you hear about Sweden’s take on the Italian staple, a pie topped with curry, pineapple, and banana.

Sweden’s fascination with bananas is well documented, but that doesn’t really explain the culinary oddity known as Tropicana Pizza or simply Swedish Pizza. No one knows exactly who came up with the idea for this unusual pizza, but according to a 2017 tweet by the Curators of Sweden, an X (Twitter) account created by the Swedish Institute and VisitSweden, Tropicana pizza was already known as the “most Swedish pizza there is”. For some reason, many Swedes find the combination of curry, pineapple, and banana paired with the smoky, savory flavor of smoked ham irresistible, making banana-topped pizza one of the most popular pizzas in Sweden.

Photo: Tumblr

As expected, Swedish pizza sparked many heated debates on social media over the last few years, with fans swearing by the unique combination of ingredients, and others slamming it as an abomination that should be wiped from the face of the Earth. As always, it’s a matter of personal taste.

“I’ve had banana curry pizza a few times in Sweden and it’s honestly surprisingly good – weirdly, it’s a lot better than you’d expect!” Andrew Campbell, an American e-sports player who tried banana-topped pizza said.

Photo: Reddit

“No, no, everything about that pizza is delicious apart from the banana. It’s not similar at all to Hawaiian. This is like someone forced a smoothie on a pizza,” BuzzFeed’s Paul said after a taste test. “Pineapple is a delicious treat and this is just banana that’s up in your business for no reason.”

And in case you thought Swedish pizza couldn’t get weirder, you thought wrong. Apparently, some establishments in the Scandinavian country add their own ingredients to the pie, including things like peanuts and shrimp.

 

Banana pizza isn’t the most bizarre pie we’ve ever featured on Oddity Central – that title probably goes to cotton candy-topped pizza – but it definitely ranks high on the list of weird pizzas.