During Notte Bianca, the streets of Valletta will have a name: L-Ikla t-Tajba. Consulting chef David Darmanin lists the ingredients of the project.

L-Ikla t-Tajba: how did it all start?

It all started rather by accident. Some years ago, the Valletta 2018 Foundation organised workshops for interested parties to come forward with ideas for the compilation of a bid book destined to secure Valletta’s candidature for European City of Culture. My tuppence worth was on some food events that could be organised. As the discussion with the working group swayed from one concept to the other, we kept catching ourselves going back to the idea of setting up a street food celebration on a large scale.

From then on, ideas never stopped rolling in. More than two years down the line, thoughts on how we can make L-Ikla t-Tajba bigger, better and stronger are still flowing in and getting adopted.

Photos: Tomoko Goto

What are the main aims of the project?

I would say that the objectives are threefold. Firstly, we want to celebrate Malta’s street food culture in a way that’s never been done before.

In a sense, we’ve joined the new European trend of setting up large-scale pop-up kitchens in public spaces. Street food in Malta is popular as it is important, and although we usually get good food from small set-ups run by one, two or three staff, we seldom see large temporary kitchens run by tens of chefs at public events. If we wanted to celebrate local ingredients on a large-scale, we reckoned that this would the best way to go forward. In a nutshell, we want to feed the masses, in an eco-friendly, passionate and thoughtful manner, while keeping the whole atmosphere outside the kitchen light and fun.

Secondly, we wanted to give an educational dimension to the project. Our pop-up kitchen at Notte Bianca is the final step of the first phase of the project. The vast majority of team members set to be behind the stoves had never walked into a professional kitchen before taking up an intensive training course we started in the summer.

Besides teaching participants the theory and technique required for large-scale kitchen work, we endlessly stressed on the creative process every cook should undergo before coming up with a recipe. This Saturday’s menu is the result of creative assignments entrusted to students throughout the course. The results are remarkable on that level. We had an adolescent come up with a bake to mark Malta’s 50th anniversary since independence.

Nothing represents the Anglo-Maltese love for pies more than the Cornish pasty: it’s just that we’ve stuffed it with our very own traditional rabbit stew. Another participant, of Asian origin, came up with a spring roll stuffed with lampuki to go with a tomato and caper sauce.

Finally, we really wanted this project to be empowering for participants. The mix of backgrounds, cultures, ages and social status in this group isn’t far from astounding. Nobody looks at your social standing in a kitchen. Anyone can get serious flak for making a mistake, anyone gets patted on the back for a doing good job, and most importantly everyone has the opportunity to cook well and progress to becoming a leader when working in a proper brigade. Moreover, the diversity of this motley crew of chefs has reinforced the saying that a society without diversity is like food without spices.

What does street food say about a nation?

I guess street food determines the latest culinary preferences and trends of a country. It tells us what new foods a country or nation wants. Many have heard of the ants and berries used in a pre-dessert at a worldfamous restaurant, but how many of us common mortals have tried it? Has the dish gone from bizarre to trendy? Perhaps only among a select few, but surely not to random passers-by.

This is not to say we’re being as adventurous as to dish out ants at Notte Bianca: we’re going for much simpler stuff, but creativity has played a very important part. Our imqaret, for instance, have reverted to the original Tunisian semolina dough doused in honey and almonds but we’ve changed the filling of dates – which do not grow in Malta – to figs. Also, we know that food brings people together. With the world getting smaller and Maltese culture slowly opening up to new cultural influences, Saturday will see how much we are willing to discover and experiment with novelty as a nation.

The beauty of food culture is that cultural prejudice is subdued. I’ve overheard many people criticising foreign and unknown cultures out of prejudice, but rarely anyone insulting the Chinese, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Moroccan or South American food traditions that have or are getting popular at local eateries.

Does the local street food compare with that available abroad?

I live in Italy and get to work in London kitchens very often. You could say that I live, breathe and make a living at both capitals of European street food. And yet, I can’t begin to explain how excruciating the withdrawal pain of a pastizz is. Or how guilty I feel for the hundreds of times I’ve snubbed the inviting smell of fried imqaret as I walked by the stands in Valletta when I still lived here.

Surely though, our full street food offering is hardly faithful to Mediterranean culture: I’m not saying that this is good or bad. The problem with that is that we often disrespect the potential of prized localingredients by favouring cheaper imported ware. We’re not going down that road. We want to prove that Maltese ingredients are awesome, and we’ve got 20 chefs, eight dishes and hopefully around 3,000 punters to make our point.

Beyond food, L-Ikla t-Tajba is also about teamwork and the value of ideas. Were the participants enriched by the experience?

Most definitely. Many of the younger ones are very excited to see L-Ikla t-Tajba’s next move. Others have shown keen interest in making cookery their profession. Some others might decide to pursue other vocations after they’re done here, but every single participant has gained a lot out of this. We’ve seen self-confidence boosts, people learning the basics of teamwork and ending up mastering them, others who discovered the value of good and honest hard work.

Beyond Notte Bianca, how can this pro-ject achieve sustainability?

This one is a pilot project, so to speak. We are still in the process of discovering how best to make ends meet when confronted with the extent of the cost of training and all that comes with it. Sure, our projected food sales should be a very welcome aid, but they still won’t cover the cost of the entire project. That said, we’ve already seen good potential for ancillary funding streams once the pro-ject takes off, be it through EU projects, patrons or sponsorships.

Street food

The L-Ikla t-Tajba pop-up kitchen will be serving re-imagined Maltese street food during Notte Bianca. The pop-up kitchen will be set up at Castille Place, Valletta.