The milk many have for breakfast and that ħobża tal-Malti prepared for lunch are not part of the traditional Maltese diet.

Nowadays, the Maltese consume what cultural historian Carmel Cassar terms the “war diet”, which did away with most of the Mediterranean elements in our cuisine.

“No one in the Mediterranean probably consumes as much butter as we do, while our cheeselets [ġbejniet] have been replaced by cheddar, Edam, Swiss and blue cheese, among others.

“We no longer drink goat’s milk, and the wheat for the ħobża tal-Malti is no longer imported from Sicily,” Prof. Cassar said.

Prof. Cassar, from the Institute for Tourism, Travel and Culture, was speaking to this newspaper ahead of the launch of a new course at the University of Malta. Called the Certificate in Mediterranean Food Culture, it is intended to provide basic knowledge about the history and anthropology of food, food science and technology, gastronomic tourism and media, among others.

Held over an academic year starting this October, it can be extended by a year to lead to a diploma and by two years to a higher diploma. Eventually, it could lead to a bachelor’s degree.

We will not solve our health and diet problems with this course but, at least, we can be more aware of past and present culinary diets

With lectures held twice weekly in the evening, the course is aimed at anyone interested in, or working within food preparation and consumption areas, including nutritionists, chefs and journalists.

The certificate is being coordinated by the Programme for Mediterranean Culinary Culture, chaired by Prof. Cassar.

“Our diet is a war diet, which includes preserved food like tinned milk and corned beef, cheddar and similar cheese,” says Carmel Cassar, from the Institute for Tourism, Travel and Culture. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“If we want to move forward and improve our diet, we need to understand how things changed and why. If we have a clear idea of what we used to eat and how this was transformed, then we’d be able to assess the situation and see what food we could introduce or even cultivate locally, to make our diet healthier. At the moment we depend more on foreign imports, although in the immediate post-war period we relied more on local produce.

“We will not solve our health and diet problems with this course, but at least we can be more aware of past and present culinary diets and work on creating more consciousness.”

Prof. Cassar noted that Malta did once have a Mediterranean diet, but this was gradually transformed.

“Our diet is a war diet, which includes preserved food like tinned milk and corned beef, cheddar and similar cheese. Cholesterol might also have started to increase when we started drinking cow’s milk, instead of goat’s milk,” he noted.

But the changes are not limited to canned food, cheese and milk.

More than a century before the war, when Malta became a British colony, the British could no longer import a particular type of semi-hard wheat from Sicily. Instead, they started importing wheat from Ukraine, Egypt, later from Australia for a brief time and finally from Canada. Malta never returned to the Sicilian import.

Just a decade before, around 1803, the Maltese were introduced to the potato. Although initially reluctant, they soon became addicted to it, probably during a period of hardship in the mid-19th century. Today, potato and bread adorn most of our main dishes.

The consumption of alcohol also increased in the 1920s when the Maltese started making acquaintances with British sailors.

“Sailors and soldiers introduced the habits of drinking gin and tonic and eventually whisky. As soon as sailors received their pay they spent it on beer and alcohol, because, they would say: ‘tomorrow never comes’. This saying remained quite popular with some Maltese.”

Those interested in enrolling in this course may send an e-mail on alison.mintoff@um.edu.mt.