Americans Love Hawaiian Pizza, And Grubhub Has The Receipts

Grubhub has released its annual "Year in Food" report, and the 2020 edition appears to indicate that as humanity came toe-to-toe with the end of days, we chose to finally accept Hawaiian pizza into our cold, icy hearts. Owing to the pizza's 689% jump in popularity based on order data, Grubhub has bestowed it with the title of "America's Favorite Pizza" for 2020. I suppose this makes sense, because when you're not sure if there will ever be a tomorrow, why not try ham and pineapple on a pizza, just to say that you ate it at least once?

I'm not going to quibble with this one bit, because stories like this make sense now, and I am tired of fighting against the current. Day is night, up is down, cats are lying down with dogs, and America has fallen in love with Hawaiian pizza. I accept all of these things, because I cannot change them and intend to save my strength for all the windmills I'll need to tilt at come January. We have made our cheesy, fruit-filled bed, and now we must lie in it. In case you're wondering how Hawaiian pizza rose to such prominence, here's Grubhub's explanation of its methodology:

Grubhub's "Year in Food" report is based on trends gathered from tens of millions of orders on the Grubhub platform. Order trends detail the rise in popularity of food items placed by Grubhub diners from January-November 2020, as compared to the same timeframe in 2019.

To further challenge my limits of things I can accept, I spent some time futzing around with Grubhub's interactive map that reveals each state's favorite food. While the majority of the "state favorite" maps that get passed around social media are nothing more than a hodgepodge of filthy lies meant to incite rioting, Grubhub's maps at least seem to be based on data that was freely shared by the public, meaning that none of us can hide from the truth about who we really are. Did I ever think that Kentucky's most popular dish would be vegetarian tikka masala, or that New York would come to be defined by egg and turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches, or that in Iowa, Buffalo cauliflower "wings" would be one of the most popular takeout orders? Absolutely not. Did I expect Ohio to continue its relentless attempts to normalize Buffalo chicken pizza? Sadly, yes. But this Hawaiian pizza phenomenon? That's a group effort.