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Club members were amazed by the true stories told by their school’s 90-year-old former headteacher, who showed them how to make pasta – the traditional Italian way!
Let's Get Cooking club members at Kirkby Woodhouse Primary School in Nottinghamshire had a very special and inspiring pasta-making session with the school’s former head teacher, Mr Ellis. He told them about how, during the Second World War, he was captured and held in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy. Amazingly, he managed to escape and was taken in by an Italian family who lived on a rural hillside. Whilst living with them for a year or so he learnt the traditional methods of pasta making.
The cooking session started by watching a DVD of an 80-year old lady prepare pasta in her home in Italy, using
a rolling pin made 60 years ago on her wedding day from a branch of a tree. This was the daughter of the couple who had taken him in all those years ago, and Mr Ellis had filmed her when he went back to visit the family during one of his many visits.
Whilst watching the DVD the children ate fruit and had a drink as volunteers quickly prepared the room next door, including a table decorated with an Italian theme. Afterwards, Mr Ellis prepared pasta with help from club members, teaching them a few words in Italian as they cooked. Everyone took a bag of pasta and the recipe with them to cook at home and parents collecting the children had the chance to taste the pasta too. Many of the parents were taught by Mr Ellis when they were at school.
