Schoolchildren given Diss curry lesson

Children swapped school dinners for curry this week during a visit to a Diss restaurant.

About 25 pupils from Scole Primary School learnt about one of Britain's favourite foodstuffs when they went to the Spice Cottage on Monday lunchtime.

For many of the children, it was their first ever taste of Indian cuisine and chefs rustled up some mild dishes for the six-year-olds including Bangladesh butter chicken and Nepalese Jomsom Lamb with rice, naan bread and poppadoms.

Mark Carlyle, headteacher at Scole Primary School, said the visit would become a valuable part of the school's religious education lessons.

'This is a really good opportunity for the children to experience firsthand different cultures, tastes and flavours. For some it will be their very first time, and it gives them the opportunity to sample the food and the aromas from India.'

'Within our country as a whole we are very multicultural, but in our region children have less exposure to different cultures. To taste the food and talk to the staff is a great chance for them and allows them to see the world beyond Scole and Norfolk,' he said.

Emdad Hussain, manager of the Spice Cottage, said he was delighted to teach local school children about Indian and Nepalese food and culture.

'It's so important at an early age to be introduced to different foods and flavours, it's a great way of learning, and we were delighted to have the children and staff here for lunch as our guests. We treated them like we would our family, it was lovely to see the all smiling and having a good time,' he said.