Malta Information
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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Home Country: malta
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 Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:53 am Post subject: FOOD & DINING IN MALTA |
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FOOD & DINING IN MALTA
Dining al fresco is one of life’s simple pleasures. It’s almost a daily possibility in Malta. Choose from courtyards of baroque palazzos to harbour restaurants and local café-bars. Find somewhere secluded, or dine in a busy trattoria.
The Islands’ cuisine is influenced by the people who made their home here over the centuries, from the Arabs, Italians and Spanish to the French and British. Traditional Maltese cooking has distinct touches of the Sicilian and Moorish. Look out for rich sweets, pastries and deserts of ricotta, almonds and figs as well as tomato and wine sauces with pasta, rabbit and fish.
Restaurant menus follow the seasons using the best of available fare: from tomatoes, zucchini, herbs and olives to fish like lampuki, a national favourite, swordfish and tuna.
International cuisine is available everywhere. Most restaurants are influenced by Italian or French cuisine, but there are plenty specialising in Oriental, Tex Mex and other themes. In true Mediterranean style, children are welcome everywhere.
For a quick, but substantial snack during the day try some pastizzi, bite-sized, ricotta or pea-filled flaky pastries. You’ll never be far from refreshments or snacks. Just pop into a local bar.
Malta produces some fine wines from native grapes and most visitors soon discover the excellent local beers.
Culinary Heritage
Traditional Maltese food was until recent years relegated to the home. As in all parts of the Mediterranean, the daily main meal, often still cooked at lunchtime here, is an occasion to bring the family together. Until the past decade or so, this home cooking was found only in village bars.
Today though, there has been renewed interest in the Islands’ rich culinary heritage. There are numerous television and radio programmes and weekly columns on Maltese fare - you’ll even find recipe write-ups in Air Malta’s in-flight magazine.
This revival has also encouraged more restaurants to offer local fare. They proudly serve their own version of specialities such as Lampuki Pie (fish pie), Rabbit Stew, Bragioli (beef olives) and various ricotta sweets and semi-freddo deserts like Cassata.
Seasonal Favourites
Traditional Maltese food is rustic and based on the seasons. In the era before refrigeration, this made sense. Families were inventive with the best of the seasonal produce. The housewife would stock up with the seasonal gluts, often preserving or drying produce to make use of them later in the year.
In the past, as in most southern Mediterranean diets, meat was scarce so fish played major role. Even today, many older people follow the Catholic tradition of eating fish on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Specialities use a lot of vegetables, from zucchini, artichokes, the giant cabbage and cauliflower that grow here, sun-ripened tomatoes and potatoes. Stuffed marrows and tomatoes, and thick vegetable minestra (soups) are frequently on the menu in homes and restaurants.
Look out for widow’s soup which includes a small round of Gbejniet (sheep or goat’s cheese). Dried and fresh beans are another mainstay. On most food shop counters, you’ll see Bigilla, a thick pate of broad beans with garlic. It is sometimes sold direct from vans in village squares. Another vegetable speciality is Kapunata, a Maltese version of ratatouille.
When fish is in abundance, you’ll find Aljotta (fish soup) laced with garlic, chilli, tomatoes, rice and liberal handfuls of chopped marjoram or parsley. A trip to Marsaxlokk fish market on Sunday mornings, will show you just how varied the fish catch is in Maltese waters.
Depending on the season, you’ll see spnotta (bass), dott (stone fish), cerna (grouper), dentici (dentex), sargu (white bream) and trill (red mullet). Then there’s swordfish and tuna, followed later in the season, around early to late autumn, by the famed Lampuka, or dolphin fish. This tasty, white, versatile fish is a particular favourite here. While, octopus and squid make some rich stews and pasta sauces.
No mention of Maltese food is complete without talking about the bread. Some visitors make sure they grab a loaf before boarding their planes so they can take back a simple, but incredible slice of Maltese life. Bread here is made from sour dough, left from the previous day’s batch. Cooked often in wood ovens, the bread is crusty yet springy in the centre.
A perfect snack is ‘hobz biz-zejt’, served in nearly every bar and still the ‘packed lunch’ of farmers and workmen. It is a large thick round of bread dipped in olive oil, rubbed with ripe tomatoes and filled with a mix of tuna, onion, garlic, tomatoes and capers. In restaurants smaller ‘bruschetta’ are served as appetisers.
The other daily snack is the pastizzi, a flaky pastry parcel filled with ricotta or mushed peas. Each baker and bar has their own version. The pastizzi makes a wholesome all-day bite when you’re out and about.
Deserts and pastries are for those with a sweet tooth! A favourite delicacy is the Kannoli, believed to have originated in Sicily. It is a mouth-watering tube of crispy, fried pastry filled with ricotta, and sometimes also with chocolate chips or candied fruit. Other favourites include various, Sicilian-style, semi-freddo deserts with a mix of sponge, ice-cream, candied fruits and cream pressed into moulds and chilled.
After dinner, you may be offered helwa tat-Tork, a very sweet sugary mixture of crushed and whole almonds. But more than likely, desert will be a simple but delicious offering of fruits from melons to figs, peaches, apricots, and citrus fruit. |
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