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local food 01
June: Malta's Happy Month Enrico Sammut recalls the flavours that accompanied his childhood as he discusses traditional Maltese cuisine.
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s a child, thinking of June always conjured up warm feelings and special expectations. End of the school year and back home for the holidays; beginning of the festa season; picnics by the sea and evening BBQs dusting down and putting up the hasiras - bamboo curtains – and hanging them across balcony doors and over garden
patios. In days gone by, the Corpus Christi procession would wind slowly through the streets led by children wearing their Holy Communion outfits with every proud housewife putting her best plants out onto the pavement. June means running barefoot along the patterned tiles and the cool flagstones of the house and garden. 02
We still enjoy long lazy garden lunches below trellises of vines and with the best fruit and vegetables that Malta’s farmers have to offer. Aubergines to make brungiel mimli - stuffed with savoury meat and bread crumbs – or moqli – Aubergine cubes fried with garlic and mint - or pasta using basil, plump tomatoes, freshly grated cheese and the home-pressed olive oil safely stored from the previous harvest. Bżar aħdar - green peppers – that are baked and stuffed with minced pork and rice and flavoured with cumin, lemon and grated cheese. Tomatoes come in many shapes and sizes but none like the Ċatt, the flat, crinkled beefy tomato which knows no substitute for making Ħobż biż-żejt – bread with oil – Malta’s favourite snack.
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The country lanes overflow with caper bushes which, with their generous fruit and petite white and mauve flowers, explode like fireworks out of the sturdy rubble walls. These are cured in brine before being stored away in old coffee jars filled with red wine vinegar. Mint, is another must-have ingredient for Ħobż biż-żejt that flourishes in the shadows of trees and large bushes, spreading fast across the soil, claiming its territory.