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THE TASTE OF HISTORY
HOW THE MARITIME MUSEUM REDISCOVERED THE CULINARY SOUL OF MALTA
by Liam Gauci
Birgu is an ancient seaside town which has been the heartbeat of the Mediterranean Island of Malta for centuries. The castle at the tip of the peninsula has been home to Greeks, Romans, Byzantine Governors, Saracen Warlords, Aragonese condotieri , Crusading Knights of St John, Revolutionary French Captains, and British Admirals. Today, it is home to two museums embarking on a new journey of discovery, a journey through the history of food of the island. The Maltese kitchen has become the protagonist for these two museums, and a pantry of ingredients, recipes and dishes has been brought to life through artifacts, documents and modern farming methods of the past, giving visitors an opportunity to ‘taste history’.
The Malta Maritime Museum and the Inquistor’s Palace have many stories to tell. They have a unique position in the heart of Malta’s Grand Harbour. Studying what was being brought into the island over the centuries and what was being cooked both for the foreigners living on the island and for the locals; the curatorial team of both museums have initially chosen the 18th century as the starting point for this investigation. The results have been surprising and mouth-watering. Patrons have been regaled with 18th century recipes and dishes, some of which had been forgotten for years, others have been around for centuries but their true origins had been lost. Visitors to the museum have been delighted to find pop-up workshops and food tasting sessions in these two museums. It usually all starts with a few choice nibbles. Most of which is local sustainable produce. Typically, guests enjoy local sheep ricotta salted with sea water, Maltese pecorino aged for three months , air-dried sausages, wild foraged rucola, Maltese olive oil and handmade ship’s biscuit. From the offset the stories behind these nibbles are simply an amazing insight to this peculiar island in the Mediterranean. Ricotta is salted with sea water as fresh water was always a commodity on such an arid island. The recipe for the air-dried sausages comes from an 18th century court case in which a butcher sues a Corsair Captain for unpaid sausage bills. Thanks to the court bureaucrats meticulous records the curators were able to find the unpaid ingredients: local pork trimmings, salt, wild thyme, and smoked chili. With the help of experimental archaeology in a local butcher’s shop we now can taste the ‘salsiccia’ embarked aboard the Corsair ship. Stories such as this
one, are endless. On cold winter days, the recipes at the museums will sometimes include soups. These warm chowders owe their history to magic spells found in Inquistion court cases. Anna Segond was accused in front of the Inquistor of preparing chick pea and broccoli soup for her husband for weeks on end. This was not because she had nothing else to cook, but because a slave had told her that it was the only way to blind her husband to the advances of their neighbour’s wife.
Later guests sometimes are offered hot chocolate. A warm beverage enjoyed in Malta since 1590. That’s over 400 years of chocolate consumption. Chocolate from the newly discovered South American continent was so popular that it was the law aboard ship to provide all slaves with a mug of coco every evening. Anyone Captain who did not adhere to this could have his license revoked.
Sweets and Coffee are also found on the menus at every Taste History event. Various recipes of the dozens of pastries and sorbets that were popular on the island have been re-discovered. It will come as a surprise that even before refrigeration Malta enjoyed ice creams and sorbets. Ice blocks were imported daily from Mount Etna in Sicily. This ice was prized by the many foreign and local chefs. The ice was the key ingredient to prepare chocolate ice cream, pistachio ice cream, cinnamon ice cream and strangely enough Parmesan ice cream. One other popular sorbet prepared by our chefs at taste history is Coffee Sorbet. The recipe is originally from 1746 and it provides us with an insight to the far reaching arm of the Maltese kitchen. Arabesque coffee originated from Africa, and was captured by Maltese Corsairs, Vanilla emanated from Madagascar, cinnamon from the Spice Islands and Ice from neighbouring Sicily. All ingredients were mixed together to produce a drink that brought most of the known world into one glass in tiny Malta. Understanding the history and culture of an island by simply tasting its long lost dishes is a new approach being spearheaded by Heritage Malta the Maltese national agency for museums.
Liam Gauci is a dynamic young historian based in Malta and is curator of the Malta Maritime Museum. He is best known for his books In The Name of The Prince: Maltese Corsairs 1760-1798.
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