Put another way, the value of the hash element  $prices{"pizza"} is a simple scalar: 12.00. The value of the hash element  $sidstat{$instsid} pasted earlier was a hash reference, and print printed the stringization of such a reference: something like HASH(0x2017b98).

Consider an example:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"use Data::Dumper;
 ;;
 my %hash;
 ;;
 $hash{'pizza'} = 12;
 $hash{'ref_to_hash'} = { 'one' => 'uno',  'two' => 'dos', };
 ;;
 for my $hash_key (keys %hash) {
   print qq{'$hash{$hash_key}'};
   print Dumper $hash{$hash_key};
   }
"
'12'
$VAR1 = 12;

'HASH(0x185b68)'
$VAR1 = {
          'one' => 'uno',
          'two' => 'dos'
        };
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