It will hold courses on Maltese cuisine, help Maltese and foreign tourist operators promote food tourism, facilitate the participation of local producers and catering establishments which specialise in Maltese cuisine in tourist events, publish articles on the international media about Maltese cuisine and agricultural produce and carry out research on Maltese cuisine.
Thursday’s meeting at Heritage Malta however proved to be a revelation on what constitutes Maltese cuisine. It also proved that there are huge problems in the sector, which may be one reason why Maltese cuisine is not so well promoted.
What is Maltese food?
Nadia Theuma, one of the promoters, gave an exhaustive introduction to what constitutes Maltese cuisine.
When Ms Theuma started her research in 2000 she found that many people had no idea what Maltese cuisine is. One hotel owner actually presented chips with bacon as a typical Maltese dish!
In Roman times Malta’s name was Melite, for honey, which Malta used to export. It was also known for its olive oil. In fact, several villages where olives were grown and from which oil was pressed had the word oil (zejt) in their name like Zejtun, or olive (zebbugia) like in Zebbug.
Malta was also well-known, later on, for its cotton and its wine and its oranges were famed all over the Mediterranean and sent as gifts to nobles. There is also a Sauce Maltaise, which is like Sauce Hollandaise but with the juice of Maltese blood-red oranges added to it. This was considered haute cuisine.
Ms Theuma said that in Provence rabbit is cooked in the same way as in Malta while our Maltese pastizzi, or their equivalent, can be found all over the Middle East.
Well-known social historian Dr Carmel Cassar gave more information on Maltese cuisine.
We must understand that what we call Maltese cuisine is part of a wider Mediterranean cuisine in which each nation absorbed and contributed to in turn.
It is clear that tuna was caught off Malta in the 1500s and some villages, such as Zejtun, were famous for their fishermen.
Nor is it true that what we call Maltese cuisine is the cuisine of the poorer classes: there was a cuisine for the poor but also one for the rich, a cuisine for the villages and also one for the towns.
While the nobles ate fresh fish, the poor ate cheap imported fish from the North Sea like the bakkaljaw (boiled salted cod) or aringi (herrings). Sfineg (fritters) and kirxa (tripe), also found in Palermo, were typical of the Maltese townspeople’s diet.
Maltese cuisine was enhanced by the dominant French and Italian influence during the times of the Knights. One must not underestimate the influence of slaves and of tradesmen either: our imqaret can be found all over the Middle East.
The Maltese bigilla, on the other hand, is a town food, found also in Puglia, and was the principal food at wakes.
They also eat rabbit in Calabria but they cook it differently. However, it is important to emphasise, Dr Cassar said, that the traditional Maltese way of cooking rabbit does not include potatoes or chips. Potatoes and tomatoes came very late to Malta.
The best Maltese meal, Dr Cassar concluded, is a ftira dipped in olive oil and accompanied by wine.
Cowboy country
When the discussion was opened to the floor, Julian Sammut, one of the co-founders of the Fondazzjoni and its PRO, said all the organisers loved Maltese cuisine, which is, unfortunately, not appreciated by the Maltese themselves. It seems that the Maltese are embarrassed by their food. Can you imagine, Mr Sammut added, the Italians setting up hot dog stands at the Palio in Siena?
He added that it is also time to look forward, not just back. We need to develop Maltese cuisine and we also need to remove the stigma of Maltese food being all about bigilla cooked and eaten by old Maltese women in an ghonnella. Maltese cuisine is no Jurassic Park.
Other speakers agreed that the perception many have of Maltese cuisine is that it is the food of the poor, what with its minestra, soppa tal-armla and aljotta. While today we have a wider choice of fresh fish, most hotels give their guests imported frozen fish caught in other seas.
This is not the way our neighbours, from the Sicilians to the Tunisians, treat their food other speakers insisted.
One item which caught the attention of more than one speaker and which drew comments was the showcase at MIA’s Departures Area which supposedly exhibits Maltese products. While some praised the owner of this showcase as having a serious business firm, others claimed that the products which are being sold as Maltese products, Knights’ Cross and all, are imported products.
Other speakers, from the agricutural sector, commented on the absence of a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture at the meeting and complained bitterly about the quality of some typical Maltese food items.
There is rampant dishonesty, they claimed, because most of the Maltese honey sold to tourists is not produced in Malta but imported. How can a man who does not own one single bee produce four tons of honey a year?
The same with kunserva (tomato puree), which is not made, it was claimed, from home-grown tomatoes but from tomatoes grown in China, to which sugar is added.
The other product, which, rather surprisingly, was only mentioned in passing and about which no statement was made, was Maltese wine.
However, it was claimed that there are other success stories to be told – the recent increase in the production of olive oil and the recent appearance of liqueurs made from carob seeds. And more can be done, for instance, with tadam imqadded (sun-dried tomatoes) and brungiel (aubergine).
Furthermore, a law which should be enacted next year, will considerably tighten control over the quality of food items produced in Malta.
More information on the Fondazzjoni Fuklar and its activities can be obtained from Nadia Theuma ([email protected]), Joseph Tanti ([email protected]), Carmel Cassar ([email protected]) and Julian Sammut ([email protected]).
The first activity is a course on Maltese Food Culture which will be held in January with the registration deadline being 10 December.