Mrs. Annie Pacciani surprised our Italian class with a cooking day before Christmas break! We walked into the classroom, but were relocated to the “Home Ed” classroom where the ingredients for a pizza were laid out on the table.

On the table was Mrs. Pacciani’s homemade pizza dough, just enough for everyone in the classroom. There was also fresh mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, and fresh basil.

We started off by dividing the dough between all of us and sprinkled flour on the counter top. We all made the pizza dough in a circular shape, trying our best to make it as round and as wide as we could, while Mrs. Pacciani went to both of the ovens and preheated them. She then went around the room and spread tomato sauce on our dough, after preparing it in a pot.

After the tomato sauce came the fresh mozzarella cheese. We were each given a slice of the cheese so we could tear it up into smaller parts to fit on the small pizzas. After that, we topped our pizzas off with basil.

We interviewed Anthony DeLalla, a junior taking Italian 3, to see his perspective on how cooking pizza in Italian class benefited his understanding of Italian culture.

“It helped us understand the culture behind the creation of pizza and what type of food originated from Italy.” He continued, “I think it was fun because it helps us expand our horizon about Italian culture and what went unto the thought and creation of pizza.”

After that meaningful answer from Anthony, we asked him if he thought cooking pizza brought our class together. He responded with, “I think it did. It helped us become more comfortable with our classmates, and work together to create some of the ingredients to further make our pizzas.”

That’s a recipe for success!