I walk into the bread-shop in Victory Street, Qormi, opposite St Sebastian’s Church. “Is-Sur Nenu! Bongu!” The customers greet me with smiles, and I greet them back. I feel a sweet satisfaction to see their bags full of the different varieties of bread to which I have dedicated my life.
It was following my wife Angela’s inspiration that we bought this shop, which became our first Maypole outlet, and which has now been in operation since 22 years. With eight shops spread all over the island – including one given in franchise – and our constant endeavour to continuously supply other shops with fresh bread throughout the day, we have come a long way since we started.
My father was a baker, as was his whole family. Qormi is known as ‘la casa del fornaio’ – ‘the house of the baker,’ and he was a real Qormi man. From a young age, I was naturally inclined to follow in his footsteps. Of his six sons and daughters, only one of my brothers and I became bakers.
My baking career began when I was just 14 years old. I was employed with my father and worked very hard when, in 1969, he bought the Maypole brand from Carmelo Saliba of Pieta. Maypole had been established since 1900 but Carmelo Saliba’s children were not inspired to continue along that line.
From 1969 to 1974, my family worked at a bakery in Gzira under the name of Maypole. Maypole was then a favourite in the Sliema area, supplying Maltese and fancy bread (as panini, sandwich bread and so on are known). Maypole was also contracted to supply bread to the government hospitals at the time, and this was a huge portion of our business.
Angela’s father, Joseph Zammit, owned that Gzira bakery, and she too was a baker. When we married in 1973, I was just 23 years old but I wanted to open my own business because I was ambitious; my father finally handed over Maypole to me. By 1974, I brought Maypole to Qormi to its original roots.
Our first bakery in Qormi was in Garden Street. Initially the entire bakery was run by my wife and me. We did everything from A to Z. I would rest when I found some opportunity to do so, not according to the time of day. My day began at 4am and ended at around 10pm, but I never thought about the long hours – it felt natural to me... and by night there was so much life in the village in those days! It was a different culture and lifestyle altogether.
In the morning I would make the dough, and then go on my rounds to distribute the bread that was baked during the night for the hospitals. I would return to find the dough ready to be cut and rounded.
It takes a total of about eight hours to make Maltese bread – and this long process is the speciality of it. The recipe requires long fermentation.... of course it may be done in two hours with added yeast but the resulting bread is not quite the same; it is not the original method!
When the first lot of bread was ready, I would sell it from the bakery or make another trip in the van from house to house. Years back, the bread van found the housewife at home, but a gradual change in lifestyle made bread-shops necessary. In the meantime more dough would be setting for later. This would go on through the day, and I would prepare the hospital bread in the evening.
During the times of the ration system, which ended around 1975, we used to have the ‘double days,’ when we had to work twice as hard. Mondays were the bakers’ off days, so on Sundays we had to provide for both that and the following days’ ration for those people who were enlisted to obtain their bread ration from us. When the ration system stopped, we started to work daily on a free market.
The ration system was very controlled, whereas afterwards success depended more on the better service than the number of people that would come to us; to be enlisted with us. Those bakers who were used to that system faced difficulties when the competition factor came in.
In 1986, we moved to St Joseph Street, which is also where my father was born and bred. When Maypole was at Garden Street, it was completely traditional, however when we moved to St Joseph Street, we took the opportunity to develop. We enlarged the original premises, and equipped it with more hygienic, modern machinery, which also lightened our work as bakers because it reduced handling.
This change also signified a change in bread culture – Maltese bread remained the main item but we also began producing more of the fancy work, partly due to the changed demand at the end of the rationing system, and also because of the facilities offered by the new equipment.
When our kids were born, from the first day they would be in the bakery with us. I am shocked when I look back and consider how dangerous the two rooms constituting our bakery in Garden Street were, but we were happy.
When the children grew up, all of them participated in the business. We needed them at a young age and they quickly became an integral part of the business as they eased into their roles. They were brought up in the bakery and, therefore, had received indirect training.
However, one of my main disappointments is that there is no bakers’ school in Malta. It is great that the skill runs from generation to generation, descending from father to son, but when teaching employees it is a different story. There is a huge expense involved in mistakes. It would be better if they were previously trained, and then simply moulded into a particular method.
When the kids became active in the company, it was a turning point because they helped to expand the business, taking up the workload and distributing the hours. Nonetheless, even today their day is long – from 8am until 11pm.
Nowadays I allow the children to develop their ideas – I do not want to dominate them; I want to be their adviser while they are experimenting, practicing their ideas and expressing their creativity. The girls tend the shops and the boys run the business, while I use my experience for coordination.
Although my baking work has reduced gradually over the last five years, I still go to the bakery every day. I am constantly interested in what is going on in the field and still go to fairs. The world of bread-making fascinates me, and I consider bakery an art.
After I lost the hospital contract, due to a glitch when we switched measure and money to the decimal, I dedicated more time to experimenting with the dough for Maltese bread. The dough is always different depending on the quantities of ingredients, the type of water used, the type of flour, the temperature to which it is subjected and so on.
The dough is made from American, high-gluten, hard-wheat flour mixed approximately 60:40 with European soft wheat, salt, water and yeast. Moreover, Maltese bread is made by a system of sour dough, or mother dough, descending from one days’ dough to the next. Dough is alive and I am fascinated by it!
The taste of the bread depends on the recipe not on the type of oven – timing is crucial. The traditional ‘forn tal-gebla’, or stone oven, involved direct fire using wood or kerosene, whereas the modern deck-oven uses kerosene to heat distilled water running in tubes along the decks. It involves far less manual labour for cleaning, and is also more hygienic.
Much equipment is available to reduce labour-efforts, and technology has improved from the horse-powered dough-maker that I remember as a child, to modern equipment, however the last stage of bread-making – cutting and rounding – is always done manually.
I never complained anyway. The heat from the ovens and the early mornings never bothered me – so many people have hardships in their work! I do reflect though, on the many bread-men or their horses that were killed by bombings while out distributing during the war. Bakers were so essential that they were not allowed to become soldiers, and even today bakers are not allowed to strike. Such importance is given to bakers yet, simultaneously, the baker is no longer esteemed as he should, due to the fierce competition from foreign, long-life products.
I am proud to be a baker. From a young age, I was ambitious and I loved my skill, but I was already about 30 years old when I had an experience which truly inspired me, because I could appreciate how esteemed the baker was on mainland Europe. It was in Italy, when I travelled alone for the first time to a bread-fair – not having previously experienced travelling on trains or anything which was not part of Maltese life. During my baking career, I never went on holiday but I would go to bread-fairs.
Even in recent years, I continued to dedicate long hours to this work because it is my passion, my work and my hobby, all rolled into one. If I was not directly involved in producing the breads, I was working on developing new methods and new products. For example, the wholemeal Maltese bread, which is Maypole’s specialty, was developed from a system used in the olden days, as I had heard it from my father. I do not want to lose the Maltese bread. This is the main reason why I am a baker – it is a Maltese heritage and I want to keep it alive! Such satisfaction I derive when I see true appreciation of the Maltese bread... like when, in November 2001, I went to a food exhibition at the European Parliament, together with a number of chefs. There were various exhibits, but Maltese bread was the first to go!
In 2007, I organised a seminar about Maltese bread at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. I invited personalities from various departments – a nutritionist to speak about the health aspects, a priest to speak about the spiritual symbolism, a historian to speak about Maltese bread as part of our heritage, and several other professionals. The prime-minister, opposition leader, and minister of tourism also attended and gave a speech. The event concluded with an offering of various preparations using Maltese bread, amidst presentations of various aspects of Maltese folk culture.
I live my life for this reason.... for the Maltese bread.
Mr Carmelo Debono (Nenu) is the Chairman of Maypole
Maypole bakery – 28 St Joseph Street, Qormi QRM 2509
Maypole outlet and offices – 500, Victory Street, Qormi QRM 2509
Email: [email protected]