TASTES LIKE MORE
Nikki Werner is introduced to a classic German toasted sandwich that she will happily eat for dinner
Toast Hawaii and I first became acquainted in a village near Stuttgart, while I was visiting my godparents. They rarely allowed my husband and I to reciprocate their hospitality, so when we persuaded them to be our guests at a restaurant of their choosing, it was a major breakthrough.
“Dad would like to go to Heinz,” said their son, relaying the message and referring to the owner of a local bakery with dining room attached. “They make a great toast Hawaii.” I tried reserving judgment, but toast … for dinner? It sounded suspiciously like grilled cheese to me.
A bell jingled as we pushed open the glass door and stepped into a brown-andorange, wood-panelled tribute to the decade when Heinz had refurbished – I’m guessing the late sixties. In another lifetime,
my godfather would meet friends here after soccer practice. And, being a gentleman of his word, he ordered the toast Hawaii.
It arrived in epic proportions: thick slices of toasted white bread topped with ruffles of ham, that in turn carried a slice of canned pineapple wearing a cape of molten cheese. A strawberry sat in the middle of the pineapple ring as Heinz’s nod to spring. I’ve since seen others add their own flourish with a cocktail tomato or a Maraschino cherry.
Sweet and salty, luscious and melty, toast Hawaii cannot help but be delicious. It is as unchallenging as it is seductive, bordering on mid-century food porn but, in essence, lo-fi Hawaiian pizza.
As we learned from a friend in Berlin, it’s by no means unique to southern Germany. On serving it as a tongue-in-cheek snack at her art event, guests devoured everything except the irony.
Eager to understand the national resonance, I turned to Ursula Heinzelmann, author of Beyond Bratwurst: A History of Food in Germany, which conveniently includes the chapter: Kassler Rouladen and toast Hawaii.
Her book references the date of origin as 1955 and the originator as West German TV chef Clemens Wilmenrod, who was apparently a fan of gratinating food in his Heinzelkoch oven (no relation to Ursula). Though Ursula’s personal recollections provided the context.
“We always had a warm main meal at midday, prepared by my mother, who was a housewife – it was quite exceptional to have a warm meal at night. My father would make those … He’d say, ‘Let’s have Bratkartoffeln tonight!’ which, of course, for men of that generation, meant that my mother would boil and peel the potatoes, and he would then fry them. Or he would grill sausages and sit in front of the broiler with his newspaper, and my mother would say, ‘Don’t you think they need turning?’ Toast Hawaii was another of these dinners.
“If my mother occasionally made it,” added Ursula, “she’d toast pre-sliced white bread (Toastbrot), butter it, add a little mustard, really good baked ham, a slice of canned pineapple (fresh was unheard of in the 1960s and 70s) and Gouda, bake it in the oven and put ketchup in the dip. As a kid, that was a treat … Nowadays it’s so retro it’s cool.”
Indeed, on returning to Berlin early last year, I saw it featured in a newspaper spread on New Year’s Eve snacks through the decades, along with the Mettigel (hedgehog-shaped minced pork) and Fliegenpilze (mayo-dotted tomato halves mounted on boiled eggs).
Toast Hawaii as curiosity was never the appeal for my godfather, though. Only later did I understand: it allowed him to honour our gesture while minimising any financial imposition. His modest order has forever elevated this open sandwich from its baggage of strictly prescribed gender roles to a reminder of him; and a generation who wouldn’t sniff at canned fruit but stood by etiquette and doing the right thing.
Toast for dinner? It sounded suspiciously like grilled cheese to me”