Toast Hawaii, a German snack

German cuisine is made up almost entirely of comfort foods. Gravies, dumplings, potatoes and roasted meats, rich stews and melted cheese are the name of the game in der Vaterland. So it stands out when a character in Dark, a German science fiction series on Netflix, made this pronouncement:

The phrase she used in German was “Gute Laune Essen,” which translates directly to “good mood food,” but the concept is the same. This “Toast Hawaii” was intended to be a meal to cheer up and comfort a lost child who was feeling lonely and missing his family.

Toast Hawaii was popularized by a German television chef called Clemens Willmenrod in Germany in the 1950s. It is an open-face sandwich consisting of a piece of toasted bread, spread with a little butter, topped with ham, melted cheese, and pineapple, and garnished with a Maraschino cherry or a little paprika. In preparing for this delicacy, I did some quick research, reading a few recipes on other blogs, and then went to a German deli on the north side of Chicago and bought the authentic German hams and cheeses I thought this recipe would call for.

Black Forest ham: This is powerful stuff, not the food-color-stained substitute we see in American stores. Quite salty and smoky, it’s intensely flavorful and is sliced extremely thin like a prosciutto.

Westphalian ham: An acorn-fed dry-cured and juniper-smoked delicacy. Less salty than the Black Forest ham, though still distinctly smoky, it’s not quite as intense but is still quite powerful and sliced thin as a result.

Tilsiter cheese: a hearty and full-flavored variety of Swiss cheese, though more aromatic than what we usually think of as Swiss cheese.

Emmantaler cheese: the classic Swiss cheese, slightly firm in texture, mild and nutty in flavor.

Butterkäse: a fresh, creamy, tangy semi-soft cheese.

Then I watched a few videos about making the sandwich. In nearly every one of these videos, up to and including the ones presented in German, from Germany, the ham they used was a perfectly round wet-cured deli ham, pulled from a plastic package, and the cheese was all individually-wrapped slices of something that looked very much like American cheese. Much like in this slightly perverse German music video for Alexander Marcus’ Hawaii Toast Song.

Schinken (ham) und Scheiblettenkäse (processed cheese) according to the lyrics of the song. I… did not see this coming. FINE, Germany.

Krakus Polish Deli Ham: It is pink and wet and quite mild by comparison.

American cheese. I’ll be damned if I use the individually-wrapped slices though. There’s only so far I’ll go for my art.

I lightly toasted 8 slices of “Artisanal” (but really mass-produced store bought) squishy white bread and buttered them.

I started by topping the bread with the various hams

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Atop each slice of ham was placed a ring of pineapple. Fresh, glorious, delicious pineapple, bursting with flavor? No. Canned pineapple rings, as this is a child’s comfort food.

Some judicious tasting indicated to me that the more powerful Black Forest ham would go best with the milder Emmantaler cheese, while the Westphalian ham and the Tilsiter would work well together. I used the Krakus ham with both the Butterkäse and the American cheese.

This whole tray went into a 400° oven for 18 minutes, until the cheese had melted.

Then I placed an unnaturally bright red Marashino cherry into the the center hole of each pineapple slice. Interestingly, the softer Butterkäse and American cheeses did not sag into the holes but rather domed up and out, while the firmer Tilsiter and Emmentaler cheeses did sink in the middle. No matter. I poked these day-glo cherries in there anyway.

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Then the three of us, Mindy, Ian and I, commenced to eating.

The strong flavors of the Westphalian ham and the Tilsiter cheese were a good match for each other. The pineapple flavor was nearly unnoticeable here, but the juiciness was welcome. The Maraschino cherry burned brightly atop like Sauron’s eye, seeking, seeking.

Here the Black Forest ham took over, with a nutty accent and some crunchy edges lent by the Emmentaler cheese. Again, the pineapple was mostly a textural presence. Still, the inescapable gaze of the cherry drowns me in its presence. What does it want? What does it need?

The Krakus ham turned out to be a better match for the pineapple, which finally made its presence known in this iteration. The Butterkäse melts nicely, and while it had a good amount of flavor, no one element overwhelmed. The orb knows all. The orb is all.

This is a pink and orange clown car of a sandwich, but you know what? It works. I am not going to pretend that I don’t love the meltiness of American cheese, or its salt-and-not-much-else flavor, and yes of course it is the perfect thing to go along with a slice of city ham, a slice of canned pineapple, and a fake brightly-dyed cherry that even now whispers eldritch secrets in my ear.

Of course it is. Glazed ham with pineapples and maraschino cherries is far from unheard-of, it’s the way a city ham is commonly prepared on feast days like Christmas or Easter, at least in my family. Whenever we roast a ham, we have biscuits; and whenever we have ham and biscuits, we have a relish tray that includes celery sticks stuffed with Olde English cheese spread. There is always an extra jar of Olde English cheese spread, and my brother, my sisters, my sons and I all put a slice of ham, a slice of pineapple, and a cherry into a biscuit, along with some of that fake plasticky cheese spread. It’s something we look forward to all year. Toast Hawaii is a hotter, meltier, crunchier version of something that might be considered, in my family, to be the ultimate comfort food.

And I would be comforted, but for the creepy man-child singing the sandwich’s praises, and the voice of the Cherry, quite audible now, telling me that I must make more Toast Hawaii.