Matty Cremona: The way we ate (Memories of Maltese meals), Midsea Books, 2010, 285 pp. € 48
Matty Cremona has compiled one of the few local cook books really worth a second look and it’s not just about recipes. There’s a wealth of history and context to the food that makes this special book a real treasure, at home on bedside tables as well as kitchen shelves.
Cremona begins her journey with that staff of life, bread. The opening chapter explores a traditional Maltese bakery, its distinctive ovens emblazoned with eight pointed crosses in memory of the Knights who brought the new technology to Malta.
There’s a tempting recipe for an authentic qagħaq tal-ħmira, with typically Maltese flavours that include orange zest and cloves. Cremona talks about the historical importance of Malta’s wheat harvest and the inevitable need to import extra provisions from Sicily – free of export duties, naturally.
The fuel used in the ovens shows how ingenious the Maltese had to be in order to survive. Without surplus wood to be burned daily many used local thistles, and animal ordure.
Villagers would make use of the parish miller and baker, often offering gathered thistles as payment. This process was repeated once a week or so and produced a fine quality bread that survived longer than its modern equivalent – these practices only vanished during the Second World War, when Malta endured severe rationing.
“The diffusion of Mediterranean identity, both physical and cultural, is defined and confined by olive trees” is how Cremona begins her chapter on olives and oil. It details startling evidence, offered by the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, that Malta’s neolithic temples may have been roofed with olive tree wood grown for the purpose – indicating the continued cultivation of olive groves in Malta for thousands of years.
Oil was also of paramount importance to the Romans, and typified their lives here. They saved the finest quality oil for their cooking, religious ceremonies and medicine with less pure varieties used in soaps.
The worst of it helped keep homes lit by oil lamps. Nothing was wasted, especially not a precious commodity like olive oil. Which makes the following account all the more poignant, where “a Muslim attack of about 1470” is recounted by Maltese Jesuit Girolamo Manduca: “18,000 Moors burnt all the casali... and all the olives.”
Of course, agriculture eventually recovered (thanks, according to local legend, to the intervention of St Paul and St Agatha) and the process of olive curing (detailed in the chapter) and its use in more complex culinary exercises (like olive pastries) resumed.
The religious division of seasons, and therefore flavours, permeates this book. The traditional Maltese palate is dictated by the liturgy and during the dour Lenten season food turns simple, but nonetheless filling and authentic. Recipes include pasta ‘Xiħa’, ‘Soppa tal-Armla’ and artichoke salads.
When Good Friday arrives, we are informed that ‘karamelli tal-ħarrub’ were the only sweets our ancestors allowed themselves, and snails were a popular lunch on the day. Easter Sunday saw a sudden return to sweet and delicious things, with figolli taking the crown.
Cremona’s chapter on honey begins with another rather dispiriting story of outside attack, this time Caius Verres’ manifold crimes against the Maltese all listed by Cicero before the Roman Senate.
These included the theft of 400 jars of honey, for which Cicero says “the Maltese islands have always been renowned”.
The chapter includes some of the most delicious deserts, including Tyropatinum and Globi (both Roman dishes), best made with local produce.
The time-honoured day to collect honey in Malta is the feast of St Anne on July 26, just as wild thyme is going out of season. The information in this section is delightful, including the Maltese names for various articles used by a beekeeper and the Maltese dishes prepared with the fruit of their labour.
First among them are Żeppoli, more properly called Sfineċ ta San Ġużepp, a delicious and festive treat.
The recipes and the history behind them (the history of Malta through its food) continues with the Feast of St Martin, which since Medieval times in Malta has involved ‘l-inbid u t-tin’, ‘krustini’ and the famous ‘ħbejża’ of St Martin.
The section dedicated to rabbit (did you have any doubt there would be one?) is especially entertaining. It attempts to recreate the meal eaten by Don Mannarino and his co-conspirators, on the “last night of 1772”, when they finalised their plot to rebel against the Knights. It was a feast by all accounts, and featured special ravjul, tortellini and pork.
The section goes on to offer a recipe for the most delicious-looking rabbit pie, a perfect picnic food.
The mysteries of a proper Mnarja fenkata are also discussed in rare detail, as are recipes for rabbit in beer and a lightly gamey rabbit terrine.
Coffee, desserts, cakes – the list of recipes and their stories, of interesting interludes and beautiful photographs seems endless. With sample menus for Sunday lunches and feasts, traditional fare alongside later imports from the British, this book offers a near exhaustive look at the living culinary attitudes of the Maltese over hundreds of years.
And best of all, many of these recipes are still made every day in houses across the island – and can now be shared, along with the stories behind them, with food lovers all over the world.