Toast Hawaii is an open sandwich

Open sandwich

An open sandwich, also known as an open face/faced sandwich, Ulrich Sandwich, bread baser, or tartine, consists of a single slice of bread with one or more food items on top.- In various countries :...

 consisting of a slice of toast

Toast

Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...

 with ham

Ham

Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...

, pineapple

Pineapple

Pineapple is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries. It was given the name pineapple due to its resemblance to a pine cone. The pineapple is by far the most economically important plant in the Bromeliaceae...

 in the middle of a maraschino cherry

Maraschino cherry

A maraschino cherry is a preserved, sweetened cherry, typically made from light-colored sweet cherries such as the Royal Ann, Rainier, or Gold varieties...

 and cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, grilled from above, so that the cheese starts to melt. It was invented, or at least made popular, by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 TV cook Clemens Wilmenrod

Clemens Wilmenrod

Clemens Wilmenrod was the first German television cook. His pseudonym was derived from the municipality Willmenrod in the Westerwald region, where he was born as Karl Clemens Hahn. Wilmenrod is considered the inventor of Toast Hawaii, "Arabian riders' meat" and "stuffed strawberry"...

 and is considered typical for West Germany in the 1950s. In the GDR such a sandwich was also known since the 1950s or 1960s and was called Karlsbad

Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...

er Schnitte.

A possible precursor of Toast Hawaii might be the Grilled Spamwich which was published in a cookbook by Spam

Spam (food)

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative...

 manufacturer Hormel

Hormel

Hormel Foods Corporation is a food company based in southeastern Minnesota , perhaps best known as the producer of Spam luncheon meat. The company was founded as George A. Hormel & Company in Austin, Minnesota, U.S., by George A. Hormel in 1891. The company changed its name to Hormel Foods...

in 1939 and made its way to Germany through the U.S. Army.