Living in Malta

The year is 1987 and I am barely six years old. The location is an otherwise harmless 1950's era former housing commission home in the outer suburb of Keperra, northwest of Brisbane, Australia. I am at the table and the spirit is willing, but I can not appreciate the food. The flavours are too confronting and too different, and the quantities far too large.

I am far too young to be able to diplomatically explain the situation. Not that it would help anyway, when the cook was Grandma Fenech. The cook knew best, and I was too thin, there was nothing wrong with the food and yes, I was going to eat it. There may have been bluff in the strategy, but I was terrified. I can still see her staring down at me in that Keperra kitchen.

21 years later, I have far more of an affection for Maltese food. My father's cousins served us up massive traditional dishes on two separate occasions and on both occasions I ate about as much as is physically possible. The Maltese food we enjoyed was closely related to Italian food, except with a little more rabbit (fenek), pastizzi, peas and spices. The rabbit, cooked with garlic and red wine by a relative, was much like chicken except a little livelier.

The most contentious food of all was Zalzett tal-Malti, the Maltese sausage. It was first discovered on a Maltija pizza, ordered the first night as an exercise in trying an unknown food. The Maltese sausage is "typically made of pork, sea salt, black peppercorns, coriander seeds and parsley." It's one supercharged bit of sausage, spicy and confronting for a British palate. I liked it, my Aunt did not mind it, my Uncle avoided it and my father was terrified of it.

Beverage were enjoyed. Malta has a brewery, Simonds Farsons Cisk, that makes a number of local products. Cisk (Lager) was sampled repeatedly and successfully, along with Hopleaf (Pale Ale), Blue Label (Ale) and some sort of shandy. Besides the shandy (why are people so disrespectful to beer?), all were good, and Cisk is a most inoffensive relatively cheap, enjoyable beer. The Maltese soft drink Kinnie, made from bitter oranges and aromatic herbs, also quickly became a favourite.

One of the surprising noises heard early on were cockatiels, an Australian parrot that appears to have caught on as a pet in Malta. I have four cockatiels myself, and was surprised to find one of my father's cousins had a cockatiel. I may have brought the world crashing down, though, by revealing that their beloved girl was actually a lad.

The Polizija can be seen in great numbers throughout Malta. Yet many locals seem a little cynical about their performance. My father and I walked into a station at one point, and there were around eight officers not doing much. This was good for us, because they helped us with directions.

To be fair, there was some Polizija action when we were in Malta. Just before we arrived, Paul Camilleri of Naxxar, while they never found his remains, allegedly managed to demolish three solid houses and kill two people, including himself, from the illegal manufacture of fireworks. With a hot political and media issue on the loose, the Polizija began to discover illegal fireworks.

I found my lack of Maltese a noticeable barrier when dealing with Maltese people outside of family. The Maltese learn English at school, are welcoming and there were never any problems. While the language was not a problem for communication, it was a barrier to knowing and fully understanding the people. Often the family or name was a ticket to breaking these barriers. Either way, I hope to have a better grasp of Maltese for any future visits.

The most memorable picture in my mind of Malta is of the spectacular fortifications of Valletta and Mdina and the views from these fortifications. This form of protection was a necessity for a small country with a nasty problem of being invaded by every psychopath that found themselves in the Mediterranean with a little too much time on their hands. Hundreds of years have left the fortifications with plants springing seemingly out of pure rock. Old mixes with new in amusing ways, such as the "Car Wash" sign pointing to inside an arch within the Valletta fortification.

The view from Mdina