Squid. Not by me, had it at a pizzeria oversea.

CiCi's makes a mac and cheese pizza which to me sounds absolutely dreadful but apparently is a most popular choice for the kiddos. To me the mac and cheese is about the weirdest thing to put on a pizza. I like a very traditional pizza although I did enjoy the taco pizza I had a couple times that included chopped lettuce on top.

In Paris, our pizzas had anchovies and an egg. Actually pretty good.

Pizza in Japan is quite an experience, like at "Shakey's". They put everything, from corn and mayo to all sorts of seafood, including bonito (shaved dried tuna) and seaweed.

LOL! Y'all remind me of the "pizzas" (bread crust, wimpy cheese) I had in one part of the world where they put whole antique olives on. These are unhybridized so you can't really remove the pits and have anything left. It's just a skin of tan olive flesh on a pit the size of a small (shelled) peanut. So you eat the pizza and spit out the pits. :)

But...is there tomato sauce and cheese on with the mayo, squid and macaroni?

Arkansas girl, you're right about the mac and cheese. I've heard of spaghetti sandwiches, too. My mother didn't allow garlic bread with pasta (though it's classic) because "you don't serve starch with starch". :) I can see why kids like it, though. :)

I've had duck pizza, that's probably the weirdest I've had.

For what I've put on a pizza, shredded dehydrated sweet potato, shredded dehydrated summer squash, kale flake, fresh salad greens. Not all at once, lol. But I add the sweet potato to almost all my home pizzas.

I've had a "lox and cream cheese" pizza, except if I recall correctly, it was mascarpone instead of cream cheese. Not exactly weird but slightly off the beaten path.

I like anchovies on my pizza - canned or fresh. I've had both. Not so sure how I'd feel about an egg on my pizza. Off hand, it doesn't appeal to me.

My all time favorite was caramelized onions and chevre. Again, not too weird.

I'm not a pizza fan. DH, on the other hand, is. He went on a tangent once to see just how cheaply he could buy a pizza before he got to totally inedible. I bailed out waaaay before he got to his limit.

When we lived in the Netherlands we would go to a Pannenkoekenhuis and order the Nordsee pizza - thin crust and Dutch cheese with oil packed tuna, anchovies, red onion, chopped tomatoes, black olives and capers. Came with a side of what seemed to be a tartar sauce of sorts. We really liked it!!

@pillog: The tuna, corn, and mayo pizza at Shakey's in Tokyo was on a regular tomato and cheese type of pizza. Ugh. Same with the seaweed and dried fish flakes with little vienna sausages on some other creations. Double ugh.

To me, pineapple is a weird thing to put on a pizza, so I don't know how good a judge I am of weird pizza toppings, but here goes:

The first pizza place that opened in Akureyri, where I went to menntaskóli (middle school for ages 16-20), had a bacon and egg pizza on the menu. It was good.

I have had a proscuitto, pine nut and rucola pizza. I thought it was pretty strange, especially considering that what you basically get is a margarita onto which the three toppings are added after the pizza has been baked, so it arrives with wilting rucola and the proscuitto gently sweating on top. However, it is quite good.

The weirdest ever was the slátur pizza. This is a regular pizza with whatever toppings that please you plus crumbled liver sausage and/or blood sausage. It started as a joke on an Icelandic TV programme, and then people decided to try it. I have no doubt it was edible, but have heard no report about tastiness.

Hey Netla, nice to see you here. It has been a long while.

I'm with you, I also think that pineapple is weird.

I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to pizza toppings.

About the weirdest I've done is to make a breakfast pizza.

I like the idea of a breakfast pizza and have seen others put a raw egg on pizza so that it would come out as a fried egg. That does not seem weird to me at all, but pineapple is just horrible - it is too sweet, has the wrong texture and is so wet that it makes the pizza soggy. I would never put anything sweet on a pizza, and I cannot think of anything weird that I have put on pizza.

I do not understand the rule "no starch with starch" - I make burritos and tacos all the time and combine beans (fairly starchy), corn (for tacos), flour (for burritos), and rice. It is common in Mexico to serve starch with starch, and while I think a spaghetti sandwich sounds weird, I have no objection to it. I always serve bread with pasta, in case there is excess sauce - perhaps I am putting too much sauce on my pasta. I am careful not to do this with pizza, however. I would not object to potato on a pizza.

The very first pizza I had was a shrimp pizza in Shreveport, Louisiana. I liked it then because it did not have cheese on it, and I did not eat cheese as a child.

Lars

In college we used super cheap boxed pizza mix and topped it with whatever sounded edible. Often it was thinly sliced hot dogs...actually not too different than ham or pepperoni.

At a party with catered pizza from a pizza joint people raved about, several pizza were not getting eaten. The remaining pizzas were topped with PEANUTS. Seemed that even teenagers did not consider them to be suitable pizza toppings.

Lars, the no starch with starch was part of my mother's way of teaching balanced eating habits. Also no grease with grease (e.g., no French fries with mayonnaise). Plenty of vegetables with vegetables, though. :) Spaghetti always had vegetables and/or salad on the side, even though the sauce was full of vegetables. Even though she grew up eating Californio and Mexican food, she didn't serve beans and rice with enchiladas or tacos. Lots of vegetables, though. :)

Pineapple doesn't go with a regular Italian meats pizza. Hawaiian pizza was very popular for a couple of decades and pineapple remains on menus, even without Canadian bacon or spam. It does have to be well drained and is better fresh, but if you put your mind to the idea that it's supposed to be sweet (which, I agree, is a big hurdle), Hawaiian pizza is okay.

I find it fascinating that pineapple remains on the menus (though it's pretty cheap) but anchovies are mostly gone, though they're so traditional.

Gooster, thanks so much for the good laugh! I'm mostly allergic to fish (some specific exceptions) but I can look at traditional Japanese fish dishes and understand how they could be good. I understand anchovies (or, as my father says, "bait"), though more on a Neapolitan style pizza with not much cheese. From that point of view, I could see the bonito flakes (I've caught a bonito or two in my childhood, but knew about the flakes from my Japanese friends--they're a condiment). Your descriptions, however, of the whole pizzas in Japan are entirely beyond my ability to imagine and understand!!

Netla, the TV origin of the blood sausage pizza is most amusing! I've never eaten blood sausage, but it sounds like a better pairing with cheese than fish does! Arugula is one of my all time favorite things to put on pizza, though. But I'll put wild arugula on just about anything...

Thanks everyone for sharing! My spinach salad is getting to look a lot more normal. :)

DH will not eat pizza without pineapple on it. Well, he'll eat it, but he'll grouse about the lack of pineapple. Doesn't matter what kind of pizza, it must have pineapple. We keep small cups of pineapple in the pantry in case we order a pizza from a place that doesn't have pineapple. Lars, he drains the pineapple and then pats it dry on a paper towel. He prefers it cooked on the pizza with a bit of caramelization on the pineapple, but if he can't get it that way, he'll take it fresh out of the can, patted dry, and scattered across the pie.

I'm in the no starch with starch camp; bread doesn't count. Mom would never have prepared 2 starches at a meal. Guess that is where I learned it, like plllog.

@pillog -- here's a third party story on unusual Asian pizza

Oh, I forgot to mention that I've had tandoori chicken and onion on a pizza -- a local place has a full line of Indian themed pizza ingredients. Including Tikka Masala sauce instead of red sauce (which you can still get).

Here is a link that might be useful: Asian Pizza

What makes pizza a pizza?

I'm a traditionalist as I like pepperoni and cheese. I recently have enjoyed some white pizzas with spinach, onions and cheese. When the ingredients get too exotic to me its no longer a pizza.

This post was edited by debrak2008 on Mon, Jan 12, 15 at 21:16

Spam!

I like Spam once a year. It's very good on pizza.

dcarch

Yes, I bet spam would be good after it's browned in the pizza oven.

It wasn't my doing, but once I went to the local pizza chain to pick up my order of a plain cheese pizza (no food ever comes to us, alas), and got all the way home to find I had been given pineapple+anchovies instead. Gah. I like pineapple, but not on a pizza and not canned, ever, and I like anchovies, but not with pineapple on a pizza.

This post was edited by writersblock on Mon, Jan 12, 15 at 19:27

Lars, I don't understand the no starch with starch rule either. Thank goodness the Greeks don't subscribe to that way of thinking.

Love both rice and potatoes with a Greek dinner. And Greek pizza topped with potatoes is a favourite.

~Ann

My brother-in-law in Vermont has hosted the family for New Years for about 12 years. Most years one of the highlights is pizza night. He has an homebuilt, outdoor, wood-fired pizza oven, which he fires up a day ahead to get it nice and hot. He has a professional-chef friend who makes and tosses the dough, and a veritable crew to prepare the toppings, top the pizzas, and slice and serve them.

A couple of years ago I was topping master, planning and organizing the toppings, designing the toppings combos, and topping most of the pizzas that were made. It is a fairly foodie group, so there were some fairly unusual toppings and/or fairly unusual combos.

Sauces: Red, white, pesto

Cheeses: Mozzarella, asiago, cheddar, blue, goat

Meats: Pepperoni, Italian sausage, pesto chicken sausage, bacon, hamburger, meatballs, ham, roast chicken, shrimp, prosciutto,

Vegs: Diced tomatoes, roast red peppers, artichoke hearts, fried eggplant, sauteed red onion, caramelized yellow onion, crushed garlic, roast garlic, sauteed spinach, pineapple, arugula, kalamata olives,

Other: white mushrooms, baby portabello mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, wild-picked black trumpet mushrooms, spinach and cheese ravioli.

After the first few standard pizzas of Plain Cheese, or Pepperoni, or Sausage and mushroom to satisfy the some of the kids, I started on the more unusual pizzas. Some notables successes are:

Carnesaurus Maximus: Every meat but the shrimp.

Philly Cheese Steak: Ground beef, red peppers, sauteed onions, Moz and Cheddar

Prosciutto, Kalamata Olives, blue cheese, caramelized onion, arugula, Moz

Eggplant parmesan: Eggplant, tomato, spinach, olives, mushroom, Moz

The best one IMHO was the Quatro Fungi Pizza: White sauce, All four mushrooms, roast garlic, Moz

After about 42 pizzas, we switched to different crusts and started making dessert pizzas, with sweetened Ricotta, Mascarpone, pineapples, berries, chocolate, reeses cups, crushed oreos, candied ginger, and/or marshmallows.

Counting the desert pizzas we ended up at around 52 total pizzas, not quite up to previous years' records but substantial nonetheless.

We were placing the toppings in the garage throughout the day, and as the dinner time approached I started organizing them and came across one container that I wasn't sure what it was. My brother-in-law picked it up saying "I think this is something Julie made earlier in the week", and took a small bite of it. Just then a niece came into the garage saying that it was her dog's food. So the weirdest thing I put on a pizza was nearly dog food.

Wow! bob-cville, that sounds fantastic. I've always wanted to have a "make your own pizza" party. I think you've just given me the framework for it! It'll have to be without the super-duper oven, I regret to say. But I may try to do a few on the grill.

What were the dessert crusts like? Were they like pie crusts? Like regular pizza dough with more sugar?

Since talk has turned to crusts: I once came across a pizza recipe that had a thick crust made out of chick peas, or, as I like to call it: falafel with pizza toppings. I think it might have been part of a flourless diet. It would have made a fine meal, but I would never call it a pizza.

bbstx,

The dessert crusts were like regular pizza dough with a little more sugar. The crusts in general were fairly thin and would be baked briefly in the oven before topping. They then would come to me for toppings and then be returned to the oven to cook. There was a crew that would slice each pizza and take it from the attached garage to the house to be served, but frequently the folks hanging out in the garage would finish it off before the pizza made it out of the garage.

Some people would put in a special order and list their desired ingredients, and I'd try to ensure that they got some of "their" pizza before it was devoured. Other times I would merely get a general request for "a vegetarian pizza" or "something with no mushrooms"

Since it takes place in Vermont, some years the temperatures in an open garage can get to be quite cold, and standing on cold concrete for a couple of hours making pizza after pizza after pizza can be exhausting. My brother-in-law has given away his pizza oven, and although the event has been fun, its such an undertaking that I won't be especially unhappy if it never happens again.

Yikes! Making pizza in Vermont in an open garage on New Year's Eve. Now that is a labor of love!

Now I definitely want to try a Greek potato pizza. I've never had potato on pizza, but it does sound good to me. I often put potatoes in my burritos instead of rice (if I have leftover potatoes), and so I do not think it is much of a stretch. I prefer the potatoes to rice in burritos.

Ann, is your Greek potato pizza recipe on line?

Lars

Lars you must try the following combos with potatoes on pizza -- I find sliced thin Yukon Gold or red potatoes work best.

thinly sliced potato, diced pancetta, fresh sage (chiffonade), fontina and a white sauce or roasted garlic olive oil as the base sauce.

thinly sliced potato, creme fraiche for sauce, cooked lardons, thinly sliced onions and gruyere (or Rebluchon, for the Savoyard variant). This is a riff on Alsatian tarte flambe (addition of the potato).

crumbled chorizo, red sauce on base, mozzarella, diced yukon golds. Crack an egg on top if you want a special variant.

I like everything.I really like gr beef mm I want to make my next one in castiron fry pan.I bake my pizza shell after I spread it out a few minutes,I put sauce then peppers,onions sliced,gr beef ,sausage I already cooked off,mushrooms,bacon pieces,pepperoni,,cheeses.

I came back from Spain this fall and had thin crust white pizza so often that now I think I could go a long time before I eat one with a tomato sauce again. If you have ingredients with subtle flavors, you can really taste them better with no tomato to drown them out. One night my husband started the pizza before I got home and automatically put on tomato sauce with the other ingredients I had bought. We both remarked on how all we could really taste was the tomato. My current favorite is caramelized onion and garlic with prosciutto and brie, with a base of mozzarella. Or, caramelized onion and garlic with sautéed portabella mushrooms and red peppers with a base of mozzarella.

Growing up, my local pizza shop (Pizza Chalet) served a Hawaiian pizza with cashews on it. Now everyone knows the best pizza is the pizza you grew up on and that pineapple, Canadian bacon and cashew pizza (with red sauce and mozzarella) is, to this day, the pizza I measure all others against. I haven't found another pizza joint that has cashews on the menu so I haven't had it in a long time. The great thing about pizza, and what makes it a ubiquitous hit everywhere, is the ability to fit anything edible on the eating surface so one traditionalists version of "pizza" is a waste of another's space to put cashews on.

Today, I essayed egg pizza. Previously, I've made huevos rancheros pizza with the eggs cooked just until set then added to the mostly cooked pizza with some salsa on top for the last minute. Yolks still nice and runny. And I've eaten the spinach salad pizza with sliced hard boiled egg where the egg was cold from the fridge going on and got pleasantly warm but not further cooked during the full time in the oven.

Inspired by Lars (and an uninspiring fridge), I tried the raw egg thing. Made on a thin, oiled pizza pan. Personal sized whole wheat dough crust with a little extra rim--some of the white oozed off anyway, but remarkably, didn't make a mess and lifted right up with the pie. The same mild tomato sauce I usually use for pizza, spread a bit extra generously (not tomato-y enough to compete on flavor). Two eggs cracked into a ramekin then poured onto the pizza. Grated four cheese. Crushed red pepper, a bunch of dried herbs, and garlic pepper. I forgot it was raw eggs, and should have used the bottle that had salt. I should have seasoned more aggressively altogether since these eggs don't even have salty yolks. Even so, it tasted good.

It was also a revelation. The sauce prevented the egg from soaking into the crust even though there were some fissures where the gluten had torn. The white was wonderfully fluffy. I finally realized that it was as if poached! But better. It looked more like sunny side up, with lovely, horizontal, white parts. I like the whites. Poached seem all about subsuming them to the great star yolks. The level of fluff, however, makes me think that the heat of the oven (475ð) made them rise a bit or something. One yolk was well done, but the other was at that magic golden place where it's solid but not quite cooked all the way through.

I'd call it a success overall.

I have made Oyster or Scallop Rockefeller pizza many times. It is always a hit. In the same vein, Lobster Newburg pizza works for us. Neither of those have red sauce. Lastly a seafood medley with a red sauce seasoned similar to Bouillabaisse is another we have made which is well received. The hint with this one is to use a restrained hand with the cheese.

Fireballsocal, one of our local pizza parlors (in Olympia) serves cashews on their pizzas. I was going to post about that (as it's one of my faves) but wasn't sure it was all that unusual. They also have sliced green olives, which I always add to the pizzas with cashews. Mmmmm.

Cool! I've never seen another pizza joint out here with cashews on the menu and everyone I tell about the cashews immediately makes the "nasty food" face. It must be strange and unusual. I've never tried the green olives but I bet they would taste killer!

I mentioned in an earlier post that people in Iceland have tried putting liver sausage and blood sausage on pizza. Well, the Scots have taken it one step further: you can actually buy pizza topped with haggis (a relative of Icelandic liver sausage).

Here is a link that might be useful: Haggis pizza