The frantic crisis over the increase in the cost of bread (Daphne Caruana Galizia, TMID, 11 May) really does seem rather absurd. It seems inescapable that the price must rise and equally true (so I understand) that large-scale dire poverty no longer exists on our islands.

However, it is even more absurd to applaud the practice of buying wholemeal or brown bread and keeping it in the freezer on the grounds that working women now do not have the time to shop for the daily loaf – is this supposed to show how advanced we are becoming? In any case there is a forn open in the evenings in most villages, enabling families to buy a fresh loaf at the end of the day as well as in the early morning.

Women have been going out to work for decades all over Europe but bread remains a crucial and valued part of the European diet – everywhere in France, for example, one sees people walking or cycling home carrying a baguette at all times of the day and evening; the Germans love their rye bread and the Italians, Greeks and Spanish enjoy breads of excellent quality. It does not follow that they eat too much of it – and the same is true of us. Of course a loaf of sliced bread in the freezer is convenient for all of us but there are people who do not care about quality bread anymore than they care about eating fresh fish or fruit or other quality food, yet spend vast sums on fizzy drinks and other unmentionable foods.

Maltese and Gozitan bread made by the traditional method (just flour, salt, yeast, water and tinsila – a piece of the previous day’s dough) is among the best in the world and has long been recognised to be so. We should be as proud of it as of our prehistoric sites and baroque architecture. The traditional method involves long slow rising and is labour intensive, requiring the baker to rise very early. Of course the cost of the true, traditional bread must rise as it has everywhere else in Europe, precisely because it is valued.

However, as most of us have noticed, our hobza has been deteriorating in quality over the last decade or more because many bakers have begun to use additives of various kinds including harmful hydrogenated fat and ascorbic acid – one for extending the shelf life of the bread, the other to make it rise very quickly – both global economic arguments which have won the day precisely because our outstanding artisan bakers have worked for a pittance for so long.

One way out of the impasse might be to increase the cost of the traditional hobza dramatically and to hold down the price of the fast-rise one that masquerades as the real thing but looks like polystyrene when cut open and tastes accordingly. The price of the so-called “fancy bread” (also inferior to the hobza) should also be reviewed. My sister and I have covered the subject of bread extensively in our book (and we continue to receive praise for it from all over the world). We have proposed that, for the sake of the nation’s health, bakers might be encouraged to incorporate one-third wholemeal flour into the traditional baking. We have tried this and it works very well.

As with buildings, so it is with bread. In most other European countries strong efforts are being made to restore old buildings and to demolish the monstrosities built in the 1960s. In Malta we do the opposite. The Slow Food movement has arisen from people of all backgrounds and income groups who want to challenge the ersatz, fast food being imposed on us by the global food giants. In Malta the process of supposed progress is, in fact, going backwards compared with what is happening in the rest of Europe.

Helen Caruana Galizia

Birzebbuga

(co-author of The Food and Cookery of Malta and

Founder member Flimkien ghal ambjent ahjar

www ambjentahjar.org)