Eating first pizza at 94, POW’s widow who refused Italian food in protest at Mussolini
REACHING your tenth decade without ever eating pizza is quite an achievement.
But for Audrey Prudence, 94, it wasn’t a case of simply watching her figure – for her boycott had more serious roots.
The great-grandmother vowed to never eat Italian food after her husband was mistreated by Mussolini’s forces in the war.
But after almost eight decades, her resistance has now finally come to an end – thanks to a pizza with the decidedly unItalian topping of pineapple.
She had entered into a pact with Jack, a Desert Rat, after he was almost starved by enemy troops, having been captured in North Africa in 1942. He survived on a bowl of celery soup each day while being forced to carry out hard labour.
But Mrs Prudence, whose husband died ten years ago after 63 years of marriage, has now taken the plunge a health scare prompted her to write a ‘bucket list’. When she suffered a stroke in January, Mrs Prudence was encouraged by her granddaughter Emma Coates to think of things she could look forward to trying after being discharged from hospital.
It was only then that Mrs Coates discovered her grandmother had never had a pizza.
‘We said “there are lots of things you still need to live for” and “there must be things you want to do or try”,’ Mrs Coates recalled. ‘Then she said “actually, I have never eaten a pizza – in fact, I don’t think I know what one is”.
‘She loves cheese and when we got talking about it, she was quite excited to try it. When she saw it, she said “it’s like a whole meal on a big bit of bread”.’
Mrs Coates, 41, said her sister prepared the Hawaiian pizza, but managed to burn the crusts. Mrs Prudence was a tough critic, and said it ‘wasn’t cheesy enough’. She said she would like to try a plain cheese pizza next – but fears pepperoni would be a bridge too far.