Searching Out the Food and Drink that Makes Malta Special
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| Malta |
Meat
Rabbit
Rabbit is so popular in Malta that almost every restaurant heads its ‘meat mains’ with ‘Maltese Rabbit Stew.’ It is an ordinary
sort of stew with onions, garlic, red wine, tomato, nutmeg, various herbs and chopped
vegetables, but none the worse for that. Lynne enjoyed hers, she always likes a rabbit, though lurking in
the depths was a big block of offal; kidneys, liver and other organs. We generally
both enjoy liver and kidney, but rabbit’s offal has a strong, rather rank
flavour which she found disagreeable.
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| Maltese Rabbit Stew |
The Maltese used to hunt rabbit, but loss of habitat and over-exploitation have reduced the wild population so hunting is now strictly
controlled. Most rabbits on Valetta’s menus are locally farmed.
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| Pulled Rabbit Rigatoni |
When it was my turn for rabbit, I chose pulled rabbit rigatoni. Maltese food is heavily influenced by their neighbours across the sea to the
north, and every menu offers a multitude of pasta dishes. The rabbit had been
so assiduously shredded that almost became part of the sauce, but I enjoyed the
full rich flavour and the fresh, al dente pasta.
Veal
Veal virtually disappeared in the UK over 20 years ago over justified animal welfare concerns. The EU has introduced strict regulation
since then, the notorious ‘veal crates’ have been banned and welfare standards
raised considerably. On that basis I decided that while Lynne ate her rabbit, I
would indulge in the unaccustomed pleasure of veal. And a fine piece of meat
it was, luxuriating in its lemony sauce.
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| Veal with a Lemon Sauce |
I had some qualms, not everything is perfect in the European veal industry, but I do not accept the still surprisingly prevalent British view
that ‘all foreigners are beastly to animals, cos,… well ...they're foreign, aren’t
they?’
Wild Boar
Although not native to Malta wild boar were introduced in ancient times for hunting, and thrived. They continue to thrive despite the
loss of habitat. They are a nuisance to farmers and a nuisance when they charge
down the streets of small towns. The herd is managed and licences are issued to
cull the excess.
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| Wild boar stew |
Some wild boar is game-y, some less so. This example, stewed in red wine and surrounded by puréed cauliflower was of the game-y
variety. Well-cooked and tender, I enjoyed it very much.
Most restaurants will offer steak, too, if you want to spend money, but lamb and pork exercise menu writers far less. Even chicken only puts in an occasional appearance.
Fish and Sea Food
For an island nation, the Maltese do not seem that interested in fish. Occasionally dourada or swordfish appear on menus, but the ever-presents are sea food such as prawns, lobsters. mussels, octopus and squid. Prawns and lobsters are largely corralled in the starters section, where we no longer go as we cannot eat a starter and a main course (one of the joys of getting older!) or among the pastas.
My friend Brian suggested I should try sea urchin with pasta, as he had been amazed that they bothered to collect and then cook anything
so insubstantial with so little flavour. I would have given them a go, but found they
are only available September to March and we visited in April.
Mussels
Mussels are much more familiar and, as elsewhere, can be starters or a main course depending on portion size.
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| Mussels |
Lynne enjoyed these moules marinière which we extremely large and fleshy. They came with the inevitable frites.
Squid
Squid is always popular and the usual Maltese way with is to slice up small squid and fry them in tempura batter.
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| Battered squid, Marsaxlokk |
Lynne ate her squid on the dock at Marsaxlokk. It was fine, she said, but there was just too much of it.
Octopus
Octopus with Garlic is the Rabbit Stew of the sea, i.e. it is on every menu and usually right at the top. We both tried it, Lynne in Valletta, me in Marsaxlokk.
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| Garlic Octopus, Marsaxlokk |
We both thought the garlic could have been more assertive and although I would not want rubbery octopus, I would have preferred a little more texture. I suppose the quantity of garlic and precise duration of cooking are matters of personal preference, there is no one ‘correct’ way to cook an octopus (though of course, I am right).
Desserts
I have admitted that we cannot manage starters any more, sadly the same is often true of desserts. But here are a couple we enjoyed.
Halva Ice Cream
Halva was not much in evidence anywhere else, but it did turn up in an ice-cream. Densely textured and very sweet, it was sumptuous
rather than subtle.
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| Halva ice cream |
Imqaret
A traditional Maltese dessert of spiced date paste, in a triangular pastry case, deep fried and sprinkled with chopped nuts.
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| Imqaret |
There are more traditional Maltese desserts and I would happily do further research on this subject.
Snacks and Light Lunches
Pastizzi, Ftira and Arancini
(Thanks to Wilson and Norma without whose advice we might easily have missed pastizzi completely.) A pastizz is a traditional savoury made
by folding filo or puff pastry round ricotta cheese or curried peas.
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| Two pastizzi, one peas, one cheese |
The ricotta version is excellent, but the real star for me were pea pastizzi. Dried green split peas are boiled almost to a mush
with a little onion, garlic and mild curry powder, enfolded in pastry
and baked. From such simple ingredients comes one of the world’s finest lunchtime
snacks. They are extraordinarily popular throughout Malta, costing €1 each in
Valletta or €0.60 on Gozo.
Ftira is a small ring-shaped bread, but in a café ‘ftira’ means such a bread filled with tuna (in our case) or sardine, tomato and more.
Given the quality of Maltese bread, ftira are predictably, a delight.
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| Arancini at the front, ftira on the plate behind |
Arancini, as the name implies, are Italian (specifically Sicilian) but are widely available in Malta. They consist of a filling, we
chose ham and cheese, inserted into a ball of rice which is breadcrumbed and deep
fried.
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| Ham and cheese arancini |
It looks good, but was the least interesting of these three, perhaps because of our choice of filling; wet cured ham and ricotta
cheese hardly pack a flavour punch.
A Salad
Cafés are not abundant in the citadel of Victoria, the unofficial capital of the island of Gozo. 21st century commercialism would
jar against the old stones, though doubtless there was plenty of crude commercialism
in the citadel’s heyday. There are, though, a couple of restaurants, and we
found our way to one - via two flights of stone stairs and a circular staircase
– and ordered a sharing salad.
A sizeable platter of cheese, tomatoes, onions, olives and capers soon arrived. It looked impressive, and once we had poured olive oil
all over it, it tasted wonderful. The salad, though, raises two issues not
covered hitherto, bread and cheese.
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| Sharing salad, Gozo |
Bread
Maltese bread, with a crisp crust and firm interior, was uniformly excellent and may be the best bread we have encountered. French
baguettes are superb – or were before they started adding preservatives to make
it last longer – the black breads of the Baltic states, spread with garlic
butter, bring back fond memories, but neither quite match the Maltese. It is
not only excellent, but versatile - it even toasts well.
Cheese
Malta has few cows – they need too much space – so most cheese, including that in our salad, is made from sheep’s milk. Some of the
cheeselets can be seen to be covered in something dark. These are speciality
known as gbejniet tal-bzar – cheese rolled in crushed black peppercorns and matured
for few days. We bought some earlier to try at home.
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| Gbejbiet tal-bzar |
I thought the cheese was better without the pepper, others may disagree.
Drinking
Wine
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| Palatino Merlot |
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| Ulysses Shiraz |
Marsovin’s Caravaggio Chenin Blanc, unlike Caravaggio himself, was too well-mannered and could have been spikier. Their Ulysses Shiraz (POK Gozo) was
excellent. Rich with tannins it was well armed to take on my wild boar.
Beer
The most drunk beer in Malta is Cisk, which can be see in several of the ‘light lunch’ photos above. It was not a beer I enjoyed much,
being somewhat short of flavour and not particularly refreshing, but it was
cheap. The same brewery (Farsons) produces Hopleaf Pale Ale which has more flavour and a pleasant bitterness. There are also several craft beers which could be explored.
And Finally...
A Michelin Starred Pig’s Ear
The day we travelled to Malta, we were up at 2.30, caught a plane from Manchester at 7.00 and arrived in Malta on time at 11.30 (with
a +1 hour time change). After a little difficulty first locating our prebooked
complimentary taxi, and then our apartment block (we had been given the wrong
address) we were dropped off at 12.30. There was no reception and no way to get
in until we were provided with the key codes, promised between 2.00 and 3.00.
Tired, hungry and thirsty we dragged our suitcase to Market Street which, our homework had suggested, would be full of restaurants.
It was indeed, the pedestrianised street had covered decks by the roadside at
the bottom end and further up a line of plastic ’tents’ down the centre.
We reached the first deck, saw the word ‘snack’ on the menu outside, climbed aboard and sat down.
We made our choices, turned over the menu and saw the €125 set menu with
a flight of matched wines costing much the same. We had apparently strayed into
Michelin star territory while in search of a lunchtime snack. Never mind, an
obliging young man took our order for a sharing plate of Serrano ham, a bottle
each of Sarson’s Hopleaf Pale Ale, a big bottle of water and two pig’s ears.
We waited some time, but eventually our beers arrive, as did the water (which had becoming increasingly important) and the bread and
olive oil without which no Maltese meal can start.
A further wait ensued before the ham arrived. In Michelin star style it arrived, not alone but with a bowl of olives and a
little offering of fishy paté.
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| Serrano Ham, Bread and Olives, Grain Street, Valletta |
After some pleasant nibbling we were starting to feel better physically, but time had moved on and neither our key codes had arrived,
nor our pig’s ears.
Years ago, I would regularly enjoy a day’s walking with Brian, Francis, Mike and whoever else was available. Brian would always
turn up with a greasy paper bag containing two deep fried pig’s ears he had
bought at the dog food stall in Stafford market. He threw them to the fittest
and most eager member of our group, Francis’ dog Dino, who crunched them up with relish.
I have eaten pig’s ears myself (as has Brian) not from the dog food counter but in restaurants in Portugal. We agree that there is a porblem with them; inside every bite there is a strip of cartilage, just like there is in
our own ears, and it is not pleasant. So why had I ordered them? Bravado? Stupidity? I don't know.
Michelin stars are not handed out for nothing and we were at Grain Street, one of Malta's three such restaurants. The pig’s ears
that finally arrived were sweet and porky, the blobs of tarragon infused
mayonnaise a lovely accompaniment. And the cartilage? I do not know where it
went, but I found myself pondering whether it had removed by butchery,
cookery or wizardry.
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| Pig's Ear, Grain Street, Valletta |
I should have ordered one between us, but we finished the two and felt replete. But 3 o’clock had passed and we still had no key codes. I
called our contact number and found the phone switched off, a second number
went to voicemail and I left an anxious message. We wondered what we should do
if we had been scammed (despite using a major booking company) and there was no
apartment. Then my phone rang, there was no apology, but the promise of an immediate Whats
Ap message, and a few minutes later our problems were over.
Pressure off, we were able to acknowledge how much we had enjoyed our Michelin starred snack. It cost a lot for a snack, but it served as our main
meal for the day, making it a bargain. We picked up some bread, salami and a bottle of wine in a convenience
store, found our apartment and relaxed after a long and occasionally stressful
day.
In Conclusion
Malta produces, meat and seafood dishes, pastries, salads, desserts and wines of high quality. Enjoy them. If, however, you don’t like their food, no worries, you can exist on pizzas and burgers….
…but, if that is how you feel, why not consider staying at home. Malta, like Venice, Amsterdam, the Canaries and others is struggling under the pressure of too many tourists.