Students at Kirk Hallam Community Academy heard about life in the Royal Navy during a cooking demonstration by one of its chefs.
Petty officer Wayne Claridge and leading chef Steve Thewliss visited the academy to talk to Year 10 students.
Mr Thewliss showed students how to cook and present a chicken roulade with bacon, mozzarella and tagliatelle while Mr Claridge talked about life in the Royal Navy.
He said: “I’ve been in the Navy for just over 15 years and have worked on aircraft, destroyers, frigates and submarines.
“The Royal Navy is there to protect the nation but we are only at war for one per cent of our time. For the other 99 per cent we are travelling around the world on anti-drug smuggling operations, tackling pirates, working in fisheries protection and delivering humanitarian aid.
“I’ve travelled to over 50 different countries with the Navy.”
Mr Claridge said that anyone who joins the Navy undergoes 10 weeks of basic training and everyone has a secondary role.
He said: “I also learnt how to put drips into people and I was trained as a firefighter. When I was on HMS Kent my secondary role was as a flight deck officer so I was marshalling helicopters on and off the flight deck.
“I was in charge of the catering when I worked on submarines and when you are going away you have to make sure you have everything you need with you. You can’t say after two weeks that you have run out of food. The only reason a submarine would come out of service is to bring more food on board because obviously you can’t grow it on there.”
Claire Linley, Food Technology teacher at the academy, organised the visit.
She said: “All the Year 10 GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition students benefitted from seeing an expert use a range of skills to produce a beautifully presented dish which many wanted to try out for themselves.”