The kitchen of Palazzo Falson

At Palazzo Falson, Olof Gollcher referred to his kitchen as his trattoria. It contains a vast selection of copper kitchenalia, including pots, pans, kettles and jelly moulds. There is a fireplace decorated with colourful maiolica tiles featuring either animals, kitchen utensils, or people involved in cooking practices and other pursuits.

In front of the fireplace is a trapdoor that leads to a wine cellar.

In the kitchen there are also a number of 17th century half-cabinets known as tas-sagristija, as they seemed to have been commonly found in parish priests' homes. On top of one of these are three differently-sized earthenware containers for cooking stew, known in Maltese as il-baqra (cow). This was a lidded horizontally-long container with a glazed interior, which stood on four squat legs, and had a head-shaped protrusion on one side. It could be placed in the oven, and was primarily used for cooking rabbit stew.

The restoration of Palazzo Falson by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti after a five-year extensive restoration programme is now complete and the palazzo will be open to the public from May 4.

This series is appearing every Saturday in collaboration with Miranda Publishers.

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