PIZZA PASTA AND ITALIAN FOOD ASSOCIATION

http://www.papa.org.uk/

Welcome to papa.org.uk home of the Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association (PAPA).

Hold on. How did they get to PAPA? Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association - shouldn't that be PPIFA? Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association, surely. PPIFA. Not Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association.

The Pizza, Pasta & Italian Food Association (PAPA) was originally formed in 1977 as the Pizza Association, but changed its name to include pasta and Italian foods in the late 1980s. Today the association is the only formal trade body in the UK representing the broad pizza, pasta and Italian food and drink industry

OK, I can accept the Pizza Association calling itself PA. That's fine. Pizza Association. No problem. But if you then stick "Pasta and Italian Food" in between "Pizza" and "Association", you need to put PIF between the P and A. You can't just add another PA on the end. It doesn't work like that.

Anyway, unfortunately, lots of the links in the information centre are only available to PPIFA members. I'd be interested to read the code of practice for home delivery operators and drivers. Non-PPIFA members at least can read the fun pizza facts:

American Pizza Consumption
Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza EACH DAY, or about 350 slices per second. Each individual consumes about 23 lbs., or 46 slices, each year. Around 350 pizza slices are wolfed down across the States each second.

Apparently, each second, Americans eat around 350 slices of pizza. Around 350 slices of pizza are eaten by Americans every second.

Favourite Toppings
Americans prefer meat toppings to veggie toppings by a ratio of 62 to 100. Women order twice as many vegetable toppings than men.
America's favourite topping is pepperoni. 36 per cent of all pizza customers want their pizzas topped with pepperoni. US citizens consume around 251,770,000 pounds of pepperonis every year.

Least Favourite
The least favourite pizza topping is anchovies.

I like pepperoni and I like anchovies. I straddle the pizza divide. If there were more people like me, there'd be no war.

There's more to Italian food than just pizza though. The country is famous for its food. Thankfully, the PPIFA have a recipe page, so you can make some tasty traditional Italian food at home. Unfortunately, there's only one recipe so far. For a pizza omelette, which is an omelette with some pizza toppings:

Classic Toppings
Farmhouse - ham and mushroom. Hawaiian - ham and pineapple.
Vegetarian - green peppers, red onion, tomato, pineapple, mushroom and sweetcorn. Or something a bit more special
Meat feast - pepperoni, chicken, spicy beef, spicy pork and Cajun chicken.
Capricciosa - ham, roasted peppers, white anchovies, capers and olives.
Florentina – goat’s cheese, spinach and olives.

Is "meat feast" really a classic Italian pizza topping?