On Tuesday morning I received a text message from a fine wit with a bipolar love-hatred of this island. That makes her a kindred spirit, on the second count. It read, “ara veru pastizzi n-nies” (‘people are such pastizzi’).

Lest she be accused of believing in the heretical kind of transubstantiation, the reference was to Times of Malta’s April Fool’s joke about the end of pastizzi as we know them.

The EU, the non-story went, was about to ban pastizzi on health grounds. If online comments are anything to go by, the majority of readers seem to have gulped it down as they might one ricotta and one pea over a glass of hot tea on a rainy Sunday morning.

I hang my head in shame and admit there were only two reasons why I wasn’t among them. First, Tuesday was April 1, a fine day to watch out for nutty stories. Second, the EU bureaucrat who was behind it all went by the name of ‘Avril Fersten’. A day later and a different name and I would have joined the turtiera (tray) as a ricotta version of the first order.

And please don’t expect me to untangle the semantic tangle of pastries, female genitals and gullibility. It’s only morning as I write and I would need several glasses of strong tea to figure that one out.

The thing about this joke was, it was eminently – and worryingly, if one must – believable. Take a headline from the day before (Freedom Day, ironically enough ‘Ġbejna saved from extinction’. The story, dead serious this time, was about a government legal notice intended to rescue that smallest and most harmless member of the cheese family from EU restrictions on milk products.

It seems local producers (though not the primary ones, thankfully) of goat’s and sheep’s milk will soon have to fill out forms to have their product recognised by the EU and registered under the Protected Designation of Origin (DOP) system of certification. Which is more of a mouthful than the subject itself, shall we say.

I’ll spare you the predictable jokes about the EU bendy banana law and such Brussels tomfoolery. That is the stuff that Jeremy Clarkson’s fame and fortune are made of. Anything I say would be an imbecile mimicry and that wouldn’t do. Rather, I shall limit myself to three straight-faced comments.

First, it is telling that the pastizzi story should be the type we have come to expect from Brussels. No doubt the EU experts will fall over each other to tell me that I haven’t moved beyond caricatures and stereotypes. I was once actually told as much by a competent someone who works as a juriste-linguiste in Luxembourg. The fact that he was probably right is beside the point.

Which is that, accurately or not, the EU is seen by many as, first, an alien creature and, second, one obsessed with Byzantine regulations that are as gormless as they are potentially stifling and harmful.

I’ve lost count of the number of MEP candidates who have told us in these past weeks that their life project has always been to work ‘for the national interest’, and that they would proceed to do so if elected. Only Malta’s membership should properly mean that the national interest and that of the EU are one and the same thing. It will take yet more evening rounds of strong tea to work that one out.

The bit about the draft regulations has proved equally hard to overcome. Perhaps it’s the masses of paperwork and jargon, or maybe some other reason. Fact is that Clarkson is popular and the pastizzi joke is believable.

The EU is seen by many as, first, an alien creature and, second, one obsessed with Byzantine regulations

My second point is that there seem to be two types of EU legislation. The first, on consumer protection and such, is probably useful enough. Only it (wrongly, I suppose) appears detached from our daily lives, and as such, a matter for the experts.

The second type has to do with things like pastizzi and hunting, things that really matter to the daily lives of very many people. This kind of regulation and legislation is designed as a kind of maze – constraining up to a certain point, and invariably confusing, but ultimately quite possible to work out an exit strategy out of.

I dare say, and heaven knows my neck is at breaking point here, that this is all very intentional. The EU needs first and foremost to survive. No amount of ‘unity in diversity’ sloganism will do the trick. Rather, the approach seems to be to build loopholes into laws and let people find their way out and get on with their lives. EU or no EU, I doubt the pastizz will ever lose its appeal or be taken off the menu.

Which brings me to my final point. I’ve noticed that the word ‘cheesecake’ has fallen out of use of late. I well remember the signs outside tea shops and band clubs that said ‘Cheesecakes, hot and cold drinks. Tourists welcome’. The English word is now ‘pastizzi’; ‘cheesecakes’ is affected at best. Tourists are still very welcome, of course, but only inasmuch as they are willing to bumble through the devilish double-‘z’.

It may well be that this is a direct result of all the meddling by the pesky aliens. The more Brussels insists on feeding us healthy sprouts, the greater our resolve to let the Maltese pastizz, in all its culinary and linguistic glory, quicken our heart rates.

mafalzon@hotmail.com