Our last day in Malta was June 16 and here in Decorah, 2 months later, I am finally going to write about a very important part of our life in Malta: food! For the most part, we ate pretty much the same things in the same way we do here in Iowa. We had a kitchen in our flat and cooked most of our meals at home. The food at the grocery store was similar to food here so we made a lot of the same dishes we would at home. Since we love eating and we had meals 3 times a day, food was a big part of our lives in Malta. Thus, this is my longest written post! I could go on and on with all the interesting things we learned and experienced, but here are some of the highlights:
*In Iowa, we love making burritos and quesadillas, but the “Tex-Mex” foods were a little hard to find in Malta and were often expensive. We never found 100% corn tortillas, never saw refried beans and the salsa choices were limited. And we definitely broke our habit of snaking on corn chips – they were hard to find.
*We loved the Mediterranean foods including olive oil, fish, fresh vegetables, garlic, pasta, olives and capers. Jon and Sylvia especially could eat bowls of olives every day, and I am inspired to use more capers in my cooking.
*It was fun to learn about the origin of our food. Most of the vegetables came from Maltese farms. Much of the fruit came from Italy (apples from the north) and Sicily (citrus fruits) but we could buy bananas from Chile. We drank local milk and enjoyed the local Maltese cheese. The packaged good came from all over the EU. We loved looking at the labels to see where it came from and how many different languages were printed. On our orange juice box, a product of Austria, we counted 17 different languages! Our pickles were from Poland and cereal was from the UK.
*There is a seasonality to the food, it just has such different seasons than here! We were eating local broccoli in January and February. Strawberry season lasted from February to June. Broccoli was hard to find in June. We missed the ripe figs – they came after we left.
*Prices of food were comparable to what we pay here with a few differences. Avocados were outrageously expensive – I think we ate two the whole time. Cheese tended to be less expensive. Wine was really cheap. 🙂
*Malta is known for their potatoes and tomatoes. Most of the canned tomatoes were made with Maltese tomatoes and the typical sweetened tomato paste called kunserva, is made with local tomatoes.
*Since Malta joined the EU, there have been many changes in the food production. Many local farmers and food manufacturers could not compete with the lower prices of imported foods. But Malta is such a small, dry country that they have relied on imports for a long time. Right now, Malta only provides about 20% of all it’s food needs – the rest it has to import.
*Fresh fish!! We (meaning Jon and I) loved eating fresh fish regularly. We often bought it from a couple different local fish stores and a few times bought it from the fish monger who roamed the streets in his truck, selling fresh fish.
*Our favorite foods included: gelato (all of us!), fresh fish, cannoli (best bakery 90 seconds away!), cappuccino (me and Jon), sausage wudy (Sylvia), rabbit (national dish of Malta), Kinnie (national soda of Malta), imqaret (date pastries), fresh produce (strawberries, blood oranges, things that were out of season for us in the winter), olives, Maltese potatoes, grana padana (Parmesan-like cheese), pizza, Gozo cheeselets. We ate some really awesome foods in Malta – it was a great dining experience!
Our favorite green grocer store. It was a 2 minute walk from our flat. We also liked to buy our veggies from another grocer 2 blocks away and some of our daily foods at the store 2 doors down. We loved being able to walk to get our fresh veggies every day!
Sylvia making beet salad in our kitchen. It was small but very functional.
We loved trying new restaurants and we loved eating with the students!
A simple and delicious Maltese meal: Maltese bread (hobz), pasta, ravioli, and a plate full of tomatoes, olives, capers, sundried tomatoes Gozo cheeselets and onions.
A typical pastizzi shop where you can buy these delicious little treats for only 30 cents (Euro). A pastizzi is phyllo pastry filled with ricotta cheese. There are lots of variations which include peas, chicken, onions, other meats and more. These stands also usually sell pizza by the slice and other tasty street food. I loved these pastizzerias and often bought snacks or lunch at one.
These were our typical breakfast foods. Missing from the picture was cereal – the sames kinds you can get here! We were surprised the first time we went to buy eggs: they are not refrigerated in the store. They go in the fridge once you get home! The bread and milk are Maltese products. The yogurt was from Germany.
Typical evening drinks. 🙂 All produced in Malta. Cisk (pronounced chisk) was a very popular beer. La Valette was our standard house wine. Many of the inexpensive wines were made in Malta using imported grapes.
As far as new foods go, fava beans (ful in Maltese) were probably my favorite. They take quite a bit of work – you have to peel them twice – but they are delicious and worth the work!
Another new food we found in Sicily – caper fruit! The capers we usually eat are the pickled buds of the flowers. But these were the fruits of the plant, after the flowers were gone. They were delicious!
Famous Maltese bread, hobz. Usually it’s eaten with olive oil and a variety of other toppings and called hobz biz-Zejt (bread with oil). Speaking of oil, we had some fantastic Maltese olive oil. I’ve never really paid attention to the differences between olive oils, but then I tasted fresh, flavorful oil that tastes like liquid olives, and I became a believer.
A couple toppings I made: on the left is a garlic and tomato paste (kunserva) mixture using crackers as a base. On the right is tuna mixed with olive oil, red onion and capers. My favorite!
Maltese water crackers called Galletti. They are great with bigilla, a traditional Maltese dip made of dried broad beans. Fabulous combo!
SylLy Acres 