Master Chef Italia

Food is at the heart of all cultures and traditions, and this is no different for the Italian culture. The Year 10 Italian course titled Master Chef Italia was designed to provide the opportunity to learn a language, Italian, within a real context being food. By engaging in the language surrounding the preparing and consuming of food, the students have also been immersed in the culture that the Mediterranean diet is based upon. The students have researched ingredients, explored the origins and prepared dishes all in the target language of Italian, giving an authentic purpose and context to studying of the language.

We also had the opportunity to hear about and experience the Italian culture and traditions surrounding food with the visit from a very special Master Chef contestant, Pia Gava, who’s cooking experiences are firmly rooted in her Italian background. Pia competed in Master Chef and became known as the expert in pasta and gnocchi. We ask Pia to come and cook with our girls and share some of her expertise. She graciously agreed and came to demonstrate and cook with the Year 10 Italian students on Friday 13th May. She is not only passionate about cooking but is passionate about sharing her knowledge and love of food, especially Italian food.

Pia made cavatelli pasta with zucchini, garlic, olive oil and pangrattato from scratch with the girls, as well as almond biscuits to finish off. The students had previously learnt about the humble peasant history behind the pasta dish before delving into semola flour and creating the dish for themselves. They had also previously learned the names of all the utensils in Italian, along with the cooking verbs and the imperative, known as the instructional tense. Pia then took over and taught the girls the tricks of rolling and kneading the dough into a smooth ‘impasto’ and how to form the intricate shape of the cavatelli. The almond biscuits were a great finale to a wonderful visit from Pia. The Food Tech room smelt ‘meraviglioso’ and the finished products were ‘buonissimi’!

The students were in their element, thoroughly enjoying and relishing the experience. Do we have future Master Chef contestants in the making? Well, only if they compete in Italian.

Web Pia’s Table: https://www.piagava.com.au/

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Anna Ciccone

Italian Teacher/Learning Leader