Smitten Kitchen; A Thyme to Eat Erasmus Project

Project Title

Smitten Kitchen; A Thyme to Eat

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Health and wellbeing; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

This project was about cooking, nutrition and food but was intended to use this as a means to develop community cohesion, social inclusivity, vocational training and sharing best practice with a wide cluster of schools both at home and abroad and certainly we hope to reach out well beyond the confines of this project.

The schools involved in this project all had a strong commitment to developing culinary skills. For example the Croatian partner won a nationalTourism Reward “Anton Štifanić” assigned to the School in 2004 for its exceptional contribution to tourism in the Republic of Croatia showind that the institution was ranked the leading vocational school in the field of tourism and catering. It offered its students a vocational studies cooking and confectionery. The English school hasddelivered courses in hospitality and catering and as part of the students’ practical assessment they completed everything from making the dishes, designing the room layout and serving the customers.

We had two interwoven objectives. The first being to increase the knowledge our students had relating to food preparation and the importance food plays in our societies, we wanted our students to see how a healthy style will include good food. Sharing food is a time honoured method of sharing our hearts and so we will pay special attention to one another’s eating habits, products and traditions. A subsidiary output of this strategy was to help our students acquire an armoury of skills which will be freely transferable to other curriculum areas as well as to the workplace

The second objective was to improve social inclusivity and community cohesion from the project. We had explored strategies to involve the wider community as well as fellow professionals across Europe

Central to the project is sharing recipes from our regions, making them in our schools and collaborating on a multinational cook book. To supplement the book we created a calendar with traditional dishes for local festivals.

We prepared a structured and graded library of food technology, catering and hospitality teaching resources which are to be used by colleagues working in schools beyond the project.

During each Learning event, students actually prepared the food in the menus for guests invited from residential care homes for the elderly or for parents and their children who attend feeder schools or special needs schools.

We will also explored food organisations such as “Meals on Wheels” so that our meals could be shared with house bound memories of the community and there carers.

The project linked to other curriculum areas such as physical education, in this aspect we will look at nutrition for sport, Mother tongue and Modern Foreign language teaching where our students practiced writing recipes in a clear format to be read by an audience. The cookbook was illustrated with photos, proverbs, drawings, photos so this linked with Art and media. participating students also built a project web site available on mobile devices as well as publishing a regular e-magazine.

The project is aimed at involving approximately one year group per school, the students will be aged between 9 and 16 depending upon the school and will include the full ability range.

The Italian school had links with various organizations such as local authorities, Slow food Association Farmers association Agenform, environmental association Amici del Po, Local parents association Inalpi, Food and nutrition Secondary School of Barge, Associazione Naturalmente interconnessi, Gastronomic Sciences University of Pollenzo

The project tried to involve as many stakeholders as possible to provide its sustainability in primary and secondary schools.

Our partners ran workshops about peasant cuisine- food as a cultural heritage

During virtual mobilities we learned about food festivals in each region (in Istria e.g. festival of dried ham (location: Tinjan), truffles (Livade), mussles (Location:Santa Marina, Vabriga), potatoes (Gramperijada-Kaštelir), watermelons (Rošini), chocolade (Buje), wine (Buje), olive oil (Buje), asparagus (Buje), apples (Kaldir), honey (Pazin.)

We also learned about the traditional production and preparation of cheese, olive oil, truffles, asparagus, dried ham

Our project explored food as a cultural heritage of our regions and how our food contributed to our local identities.

During physical and virtual mobilities hosts presented details of the connection between people and food in project regions.

During physical and virtual mobilities we presented workshops about traditional food and preparation in the past

Our students and teachers researched the food history and connectivity between food and people

Food Roads in Istria- wine roads, asparagus, truffle, etc.

Project Website

https://smittenkitchenerasmus.weebly.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 145207,53 Eur

Project Coordinator

academy at shotton hall & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Turisticko-ugostiteljska skola Antona Stifanica Porec
• 13th Gymnasium of Heraklion
• Agrupamento de Escolas do Algueirão
• istituto comprensivo di Moretta
• Szkola Podstawowa nr 1 z Oddzialami Integracyjnymi im. Kawalerow Orderu Usmiechu w Przasnyszu