While traditions change, and the popularity of chocolate Easter eggs rises, the Maltese figolla remains steadfast, a staple for many-a Maltese family on the island at Easter.

Dr Noel Buttigieg, a lecturer at the Institute for Tourism, Travel & Culture at the University of Malta, who is knowledgeable about the traditions and history behind figolli in Malta, explained that references to the Maltese traditional Easter pastry date back to the second half of the 18th century.

“Technically speaking, we are dealing with a food-related tradition primarily influenced by the Church. Food consumption through time has been motivated by rhythms and prohibitions he Church had instituted. I’m talking about feasting and fasting."

“When it comes to major church festivities throughout our history, we tend to celebrate these with food, and we also tend to have specific food associated with those rituals. We have food related with Christmas for example, and nowadays we have food associated with Easter. Easter is the tail-end of a period of fasting, it is a period of feasting.”

“Figolla is probably an alliteration of figura, having changed over time. Some of the earliest references we have are related to figura, in other words, the image of a shape. Apart from that, there were specific symbols associated with the shape of the figolli, some of which have died out, or have been replaced with other commercial ones. As an example, the fish was used in the past as it was a symbol of Jesus Christ.”

“Today, we use icing and sugar on figolli, which is really interesting as you would not find those kind of ingredients up until the early 20th century. Remember, sugar was very expensive back then. “

Turning to other traditions such as fasting during Lent, he explained that nowadays, people might give up eating sweets during the period, however things were different 200 years ago, where the opportunity of eating something sweet was quite remote.

More recently, chocolate eggs hit the scene, with chocolate originally being quite expensive. “Today, who will hard-boil eggs and paint them in red? The significance of those traditions is crumbling away."

 

The ingredients used in figolli

Noel Borg, from Mannarinu Caterers, says that the pastry is made with sugar, butter, flour and baking powder. The other ingredients include ground almonds, ribbed almonds, icing sugar, maraschino, anisette, lemon zest, orange zest, cinnamon sticks and egg white.

Photos Baskal Mallia