How To Make Toast Hawaii, Germany's Beloved Open-Faced Sandwich

If you're reading this, there's a very good chance that you've never heard of Toast Hawaii. It's one of those small miracles of cultural difference in an increasingly globalized, homogenous world — which is, admittedly, a bit of a lofty way to describe an open-faced sandwich that originated in postwar Germany. It's as ubiquitous and easily understood in Germany as, say, a grilled cheese or a tuna melt would be in America. But what exactly is it?

Simply put, Toast Hawaii is a piece of bread with ham, a slice of pineapple, and cheese (often the old reliables Gruyère or Emmental, also the best cheeses for French onion soup), toasted until everything is soft and melty. For a bit of garnish, it's typical to place a maraschino cherry in the middle of the pineapple. You can, of course, personalize as you please — you can use a fruit other than cherry, or you can shake paprika over top — but that is the basic recipe.

Toast Hawaii (also known as Hawaii toast, or Hawaiian toast) might seem like a curiously American-sounding dish to become so popular in Germany. Well, there's a good reason for that: The dish may have been inspired by the Spamwich in an American cookbook made by Hormel. As Spam wasn't commonplace in Germany, they substituted ham instead. (Ironically, Spam happens to be very popular in Hawaii, where the canned pineapple was likely coming from.)

While the dish may or may not have been invented by the popular German cooking show host Clemens Wilmenrod, it was certainly he who popularized it. Although he wasn't a trained chef, Wilmenrod became popular thanks to his demeanor and his resourceful use of ingredients. The dishes he made were usually shaped by the austerity of the period, and made frequent use of canned goods and mixes — in this way, he was something like the Sandra Lee of his day. (He also once threatened to kill himself live on air if someone could prove he didn't invent a dish called the "filled strawberry," which is somewhat less like Sandra Lee.) In any case, he brought this interesting dish to national attention. Even those who scorn the thought of pineapple on pizza might find themselves won over by its simplicity.